DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Welcome to the NPD Sales Figure Analysis, the second edition to not actually have access to the really useful NPD sales figures. But through leaks and whatnot, we have just barely enough to get an analysis out. We you get lemons … All the figures are collected and calculated by NPD.

The figures for US sales in October 2010 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (October 2009 figures also shown, including percentage change):

• Xbox 360: 325,000 (Total: 22.2 million; October 2009: 249,700 – up 30%)
• PS3: 250,000 (Total: 13.7 million; October 2009: 320,600 – down 22%)
• Wii: 232,000  (Total: 30.6 million; October 2009: 506,900 – down 54%)

NPD October 2010 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of October 2010)

My prediction from last month was:

I loathe to make a prediction, because there might not even be figures next month to check whether I was right or not, but if there are figures, then I expect the Xbox 360 to still hold a sales lead over the PS3, which will outsell the Wii again. The new Fallout game, Fallout New Vegas, should do very well, with more copies being sold for the Xbox 360 (not that we have any way of telling). Fable III, the Xbox 360 exclusive, should also do well and again help the Xbox 360 console sales just like this month’s exclusive.

Lukily, there were just enough leaks this month to check against my prediction, and it seems I was correct in predicting the order of hardware sales at least. The Xbox 360 was again the best selling home console of the month, and the Wii was again the worst. Both Fallout New Vegas and Fable III did well on the Xbox 360, and so as predicted, helped the console sales.

This month makes it 5 months in a row that the Xbox 360 has retained the best selling home console crown. That’s a feat only achieved by the Wii, and it is entirely down to shrewd marketing on Microsoft’s behalf. It all started with the surprise announcement of the Xbox 360 “Slim” back in June, and kept on going with Halo Reach, and now Fable III. And so while everyone predicted this would be the year for the PS3, due to the more numerous exclusives they had, in the end, some carefully timed releases was all Microsoft needed. And with early Kinect figures showing that it’s selling extremely well ahead of the holiday period, possibly beating the Move if the early figures are correct, then this holiday should be a good one for Microsoft. For the hardware numbers, it actually represented a 30% increase compared to the same month last year, the only console to managed to do this. But looking further back, this month’s numbers are actually 12% down compared to the same month in 2009, so the weakening hardware sales is a serious concern for the industry in general. However, if Move or Kinect are  successes, then this may lead to more PS3 and Xbox 360 console sales, as family/casual gamers get in on the act. I would say that the Xbox 360 has more to benefit than the PS3, since the Xbox 360’s image as a console only for hardcore gamers would benefit more from Kinect’s success than the PS3 from Move, as many already use the PS3 for activities other than hardcore gaming (as a Blu-ray player/media hub, mainly). And of course, Kinect is more of a departure, and thus upgrade, from the Wii than the Move, and this may be more attractive to families looking to move on from the Wii (they certainly don’t want more of the same, which the PS3 Move represents, even though this perception is not correct – but for those that also need a Blu-ray player/media hub, the PS3 may be also quite attractive).

But whatever happens, the Wii is the loser in all of this. Nintendo has hinted at the successor to the console once it sells 15 million more units, but at the current rate of sales, it could take years. The holiday period will tell us more about the fate of the Wii, but if it doesn’t at least regain some of the lost sales this year. The Wii is traditionally a strong seller during the holidays, when families are looking for appropriate gifts, but with Move and Kinect, nothing is certain this holiday sales period. And if the Wii doesn’t do well, then expect Nintendo to speed up their plans to introduce the Wii 2. As to what the Wii 2 will include, nobody really knows at the moment. Some say it will have a Blu-ray drive, it will most likely support 1080p HD, but even if that were all true and that the controller is made more accurate than the Move, it still feels like Nintendo is playing catch-up now, instead of leading. Perhaps they will also take a page from Kinect’s playbook and introduce controller-less gaming, but even this is catch-up. So what can the Wii 2 bring that makes it better than the Move or Kinect? For me, I can’t see much that they can do to improve on either of these two systems, but Nintendo are more than capable of surprising the market, so don’t rule them out just yet. In any case, Wii sales were down 54% compared to last year, the decline is actually speeding up compared to recent month. And it’s down a whopping 71% compared to two years ago, when sales apparently peaked.

For Sony, the PS3 continues its post-Slim/price-cut decline, dropping 22% compared to the same time last year. Sony has been trumpeting their software sales this month, saying it’s the only platform to have software growth (50%), but most of that was down to how poorly PS3 games were selling last year. The PS3 actually recorded a modest gain compared to two years ago, the only console to be able to do it, but again, that was mainly down to how poorly it was selling back then. The slim/price-cut put Sony back into the game just when it looked like it might have been game over, but it still isn’t winning. However, positive sale reports for Move, with sales up 15% compared to last month when it was officially launched, may help the console at the expense of the Wii as discussed above. The 15% figure is good because traditionally after launch, sales do drop since the launch month includes all pre-orders as well. However, the Move was only released for half a month in September, whereas the October figures are for a whole month, plus the fact that as we get closer to the holiday period, sales naturally increase. These two factors means we still need to look at the next few months of Move sales before we can declare it a total success, with the most important months being the first few of next year, to see if the Move has staying power.

Let’s move onto software sales, which without the detailed NPD stats we’ve all gotten used to, makes analysis incredibly difficult. We only have figures for the Xbox 360 exclusives, Fable III and Halo Reach, and of course the chart featuring the list of best selling games (based on total sales for all platforms). The last Fable game sold 790,000 copies in the first month, so the 580,000 figure for Fable III can only be considered average. But for the multi-platform releases, like NBA 2K11, Fallout New Vegas and Medal of Honor, you can pretty much expect the Xbox 360 versions to have outsold the PS3 versions. Here’s the chart:

1. NBA 2K11 (Take-Two Interactive, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, PC)
2. Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda Softworks, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
3. Medal of Honor (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
4. Fable III (Microsoft, Xbox 360) – 580,000
5. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (LucasArts, Xbox 360, PS3, WII, PC, NDS)
6. Halo: Reach (Microsoft, Xbox 360) – 315,000
7. Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft, Wii)
8. FIFA Soccer 11 (Electronic Arts, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, NDS, PC)
9. Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360, PS3, WII, PS2, PSP)
10. WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 (THQ, PS3, Xbox 360, PS2, WII, PSP)

Prediction? The Xbox 360 to still be the winner thanks to Kinect, with a slight comeback for the Wii, and may even be enough to knock the PS3 off second place and challenge the Xbox 360. Call of Duty: Black Ops will dominate the software charts, again favouring the Xbox 360, with Sony’s long (and I mean long) awaited GT5 doing well too. Other notable releases in a busy month include Donkey Kong Country Returns, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

See you next month (hopefully).

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 20th, 2010 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.