The growth of the installed bases in Japan, the U.S., the U.K. and Germany can be seen in the following LTD growth chart:



In this graph we can clearly see the large bump in sales during the Wii's second Christmas on the market. Keep in mind that the above graph does not include any territories outside of those listed, so it does not show the full worldwide installed base for the Wii.

The LTD sales figures above give us the data needed to determine month-to-month Wii shipments to the listed territories. That data covers the majority of Wii sales, and therefore provides a partial picture of how many systems Nintendo has managed to produce and ship each month.

Remember that Nintendo has been increasing its production of the Wii hardware. When the system launched in 2006, Nintendo claimed to be producing 1 million systems each month. Then in late 2007 Nintendo of America's Senior Vice President of Marketing, George Harrison, stated in an interview with Next-Gen.biz that production had increased to 1.8 million systems per month. Given those claims, the shipments in November and December of 2007, shown in the graph above, are interesting. Not only do they average more than 1.8 million systems across those two months, but remember that the figures in the graph do not include most of Europe, Australia, Canada, and many other territories.

Regardless, it appears clear that Nintendo has increased Wii production during the first quarter of 2008. Shipments to just Japan, the U.S., the U.K., and Germany are averaging over 1 million systems per month from January to March.

Strong third party sales (in the West)

In the past year a lot has been said about third-party Wii software sales. Three interesting slides in President Iwata's presentation demonstrate the complicated situation facing software publishers. The short version is this: Nintendo dominates Wii software sales in Japan, but third parties are very strong on the Wii in both the U.S. and Europe.

Here is the picture in Japan, directly from President Iwata's slides:



The market for Wii software in Japan appears to be nearly completely made up of products from Nintendo and the Pokémon Company. In response to the concerns that some have expressed about this situation, President Iwata responded “it is true that Nintendo’s 1st party titles and titles from Pokémon Company occupy a significant portion of Wii software sales in Japan” but that “it is also true that the situation will change as time goes by”.