DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

The February 2009 NPD figures are in. Typically a slow month, February 2009 will prove to be an important one particularly for Sony as it hopes that end a quarter long streak that has seen all of its consoles fall in sales compared to the same time last year, in a time when all other console sales were up. With Killzone 2 being introduced late in February, it may just give Sony what it needs, or will it be a case of too little and too late (certainly, very late in the month). You can read last month’s analysis here. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

The figures for US sales in February 2009 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (February 2008  figures also shown, including percentage change):

NPD February 2009 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of February 2009)

My prediction from last month was:

So my prediction would be a slight increase in PS3 sales, with lesser increases for the Wii and Xbox 360, but with the ordering of consoles remaining largely unchanged. It’s unlikely that the PS3 will outsell the same time last year, but it may have better luck in March when Killzone 2 may help in terms of hardware numbers (it’s late release in February won’t affect that month’s figures).  

I think I was largely right. In fact, I think I was spot on with pretty much everything. PS3 sales did increase, and it did increase more so than the Wii and Xbox 360, but not enough to change the ordering. And I was almost wrong on the “PS3 won’t outsell same time last year” statement, but almost wrong still means I was right. As you will see from the software figures, Killzone 2 did “kill”, but it wasn’t enough to give the hardware numbers a boost.

And while Sony were so close to breaking their bad luck streak in terms of hardware underselling compared to last year, all three PlayStation consoles again recorded sales drops compared to the same time last year. Both Nintendo and Microsoft again also managed to outsell the same period last year, with the Xbox 360 recording a huge jump and its best “non-holiday” sales since the release of Halo 3 (despite having no A-list exclusives this month). The PS3 was so close to outselling February 2008, and I think had Killzone 2 been released a week earlier in February (it was released on February 27), then the PS3 would have done it. But as they say, timing is everything and with Killzone 2 straddling between two months, it might just distribute sales enough where neither February nor March will mean good enough numbers for the PS3 for it to outsell 2008.

The PS2 is clearly on its last legs, and the PSP’s momentum has stalled, so Sony has to put everything into the PS3 now as it no longer has any other options. And the decisi0n to release Killzone 2 so close to the end of the reporting period may have hurt the chance of adding a number 1 title to the PS3’s list of achievements (or is that Trophies?), even if it meant taking a hit in Febuary. And Killzone 2 further highlights why high hardware prices are a bad idea, because can you imagine this title not being number 1 if it had been released on the Xbox 360 or the Wii? Sony’s insistence on high hardware prices has meant that they have missed out on a lot of revenue from their high profile release (such as Killzone 2, and LittleBigPlanet, as well as multi-platform releases such as GTA IV) – I don’t have access to Sony’s accounts, but can the extra loss in hardware revenue from faster price drops be offset by the extra gains in software revenue (thanks to the superior number of hardware in people’s homes)? And would this have meant that the total loss in revenue would have been  manageable enough and much more sensible from a mid term perspective? But only Sony knows what they can and cannot afford to do.

The sales surge for the Xbox 360 is hard to explain. There were no price drops, no hit releases (exclusive or otherwise, Street Fighter IV included), and nothing that would suggest an increase was on the cards. Perhaps its status as the cheapest console on the market is finally providing dividends as the economic situation worsens. The Wii and the Nintendo brand contines its march towards total domination of this game console generation. 

Let’s get to the software charts. This is at least one area that will give Sony a much needed boost, because the PS3 top 10 sales finally managed to beat the Xbox 360 sales. Neither got near the Nintendo numbers, of course, but it just shows what a critics favourite like Killzone 2 can do for software sales. Another bit of good news is that despite 2:1 hardware advantage for the Xbox 360, the multi-platform Street Fighter IV managed to sell practically even for both the 360 and PS3. This either means that PS3 owners loved SFIV more than Xbox 360 owners, or that at least on the software front, Microsoft is about to lose its status as the console with the best software sales ratio. Killzone 2, as mentioned earlier, did quite well but not enough to seriously challenge Wii Fit/Play, nor SFIV. So good news for Sony as they 23.6% of the market, which beat Microsoft’s 20.7%. All the Nintendo “must-have” releases are still on the list, for both the Wii and DS, so they took nearly 56% of the top 10. Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

1. Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 644,000   
2. Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360, Capcom) – 446,000
   
3. Street Fighter IV (PS3, Capcom) – 403,000
4. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 386,000
5. Killzone 2 (PS3, Sony) – 323,000
6. Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 263,000
7. Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360, Activision Blizzard) – 193,000
8. Mario Kart (DS, Nintendo) – 145,000
9. New Super Mario Bros. (DS, Nintendo) – 144,000 
10. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Wii, Activision Blizzard) – 136,000

Next month should be a big one for software sales, as Resident Evil 5, Halo Wars, and GTA: Chinatown Wars all make their way onto their respective consoles. There is also the left over sales from Killzone 2, and any hardware effects that may show up. My prediction for March 2009 would be that PS3 sales finally beat the 2008 equivalent, thanks largely to Killzone 2 and RE5 (March 2008 was also a very slow month). The ordering of the hardware sales would still remain the same though, as RE5 is no longer platform exclusive for the first time. It will be interesting on the software front, because you would imagine RE5 selling better on the 360, although perhaps only by the same margin as SFIV, and Killzone 2 should do better than the averagely rated (relatively speaking) Halo Wars. 

See you next month.

The January 2009 NPD figures are in, and this month will usually see huge drops in sales due to the end of the holiday shopping period. The drop from the same time last year was even bigger due to stock shortages, but this year at least this problem should not occur as the console manufacturers have correctly predicted the booming sales that’s make all other industries jealous. The PlayStation brand has taken a beating in the last three months of figures, so with a new year, Sony will be hoping for good news. Nintendo will be hoping that the Wii did better this time than the same time last year, where stock issues meant very low sales. You can read last month’s analysis here. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

The figures for US sales in January are below, ranked in order of number of sales (January 2008  figures also shown, including percentage change):

NPD January 2009 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of January 2009)

My prediction from last month was:

Next month will see a huge drop in terms of sales, which is part of the usual cycle. Stock availability could affect sales, and usually the better selling consoles will do worse in January compared to the lower selling ones that still have plenty of stock left. So if Wii, DS and Xbox 360 sales struggle, while PS3 sales improve in comparison despite no popular new games or price cuts, then this is one possible explanation. 

The reality pretty much panned out the same as the prediction, except stock shortages weren’t really an issue, unlike January 2008 (for the Wii, and at least according to Microsoft, for the 360 as well). This helped push the Wii, DS and Xbox 360 up compared to the same time last year, with Nintendo yet again able to pull of amazing 100%+ increases. The Xbox 360’s 34% surge, while less impressive, has establishes the console as the third most popular of all gaming systems in the US.

Again, it’s a month of “reds” for the PlayStation brand, with drops across the board. The PS2 aside, whose drop is understandable, the PS3 and PSP figures are obviously disappointing. The drop for the PS3 figures almost exactly matches up to the increase in Xbox 360 numbers, not saying that both are related, but that’s the obvious connection people will make. The PSP, at times competitive with the DS, is now completely outclassed. Sony might need to cut PS3 prices now not only to save the PS3, but also to save the PSP, which had a period of success last year when PSP integration features were improved on the PS3. I think there’s been enough said on what Sony need to do, and it’s quite obvious, but whether they can afford to do it or not, that’s another question. But it’s getting to the point where Sony can no longer not afford some actions, not if they want to ensure the PlayStation brand is the leader in gaming (probably too late for it this generation, but at the very least, ensure it’s not in last place).

Without stock shortages, both the Wii and Xbox 360 managed to sell in greater numbers than the same time last year, the Wii in particular. It is worth noting that none of the top 3 consoles, the Wii, DS and 360, have shown any signs of suffering from the economic meltdown that’s starting to affect almost all other businesses. It is also no surprise to find that these 3 consoles are the cheaper ones on the market, both by actual cost and long term value (availability of low cost games, etc.).  The Wii still hasn’t had (or needed) a price drop, even after 2 years of sales, and does not appear to need many new ‘must-have’ titles to maintain the momentum (if anything, it’s picked up). This makes the Wii very unique in terms of video game consoles, and probably electronic devices in general. The lower cost of making more and more Wiis will help Nintendo realise a profit even without having to sell any games, which again is unheard of in the video gaming industry.

Okay, enough with the Nintendo love-in. Let’s have a look at the software. Which means the love-in will have to continue, I guess. One of the best, if not the best, month for Nintendo as Fit, Play and Kart again dominated the software charts. The Xbox 360 took the next 3 spots – the charting Xbox 360 titles will usually point to the month’s newly released, and popular, multi-platform titles (or in the absence of such titles, last month’s new hit releases). Two Nintendo DS titles made it into the top 10, including a new Mario game which will always sell well (and brings backs some old memories), and also oddly the very old Mario Kart game again (is it becoming the “Wii Play” for the DS?). The last spot was taken by the Xbox 360 again. Nothing for the PS3, in fact, nothing other than one single entry for the PlayStation brand in the top 20 (that was for Call of Duty: World at War for the PS3 coming at 11). It seems that the better Nintendo does, the poorer Sony becomes, while Microsoft sells the most games to “hardcore” gamers. 61% of all games sold in the top 10 were for the Wii, 29% for the Xbox 360 and 10% for the DS. Sony gets a big fat zero for the first time since I’ve started tracking software numbers (since January 2008). Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

1. Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 777,000   
2. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 415,000
3. Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 292,000
4. Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360, Electronic Arts) – 243,000
5. Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360, Activision Blizzard) – 235,000
6. Skate 2 (Xbox 360, Electronic Arts) – 199,000
7. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Wii, Activision Blizzard) – 155,000
   
8. New Super Mario Bros. (DS, Nintendo) – 135,000 
9. Mario Kart (DS, Nintendo) – 132,000
   
10. Lord of the Rings: Conquest (Xbox 360, Electronic Arts) – 113,000

If last year’s stats are to be believed, then sales should pick up a bit for all concerned, but with stock shortages affecting figures last year and nothing like this right now, this might ring more true for the PS3 than the Wii/360. So my prediction would be a slight increase in PS3 sales, with lesser increases for the Wii and Xbox 360, but with the ordering of consoles remaining largely unchanged. It’s unlikely that the PS3 will outsell the same time last year, but it may have better luck in March when Killzone 2 may help in terms of hardware numbers (it’s late release in February won’t affect that month’s figures).  

See you next month.

Now that the December 2008 NPD figures have been made available, and I have posted the analysis, I have now covered a complete year in terms of NPD figures and so it’s fitting to now take a look at 2008 through the NPD figures, but mainly concentrating on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

The total hardware sales figures for 2008 are as follows:

• Wii: 10,171,000
• DS: 9,951,000
• Xbox 360: 4,735,000
• PSP: 3,829,500
• PS3: 3,544,100
• PS2: 2,502,700

This is a breakdown of these numbers, for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii:

NPD 2008: Console hardware sales breakdown

As you can see, the Wii totally dominated, with the Xbox 360 having a slight lead over the PS3 thanks to the PS3’s stronger numbers at the beginning of the year and the Xbox 360’s stronger numbers towards to the end. To further illustrate this point, let’s have a look at the graphs for the Xbox 360/PS3, broken down for the first half of the year and then the second:

NPD 2008: Hardware Sales, 1st half of year

NPD 2008: Hardware Sales, 2nd half of year

Quite a turnaround for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. PS3’s slight lead in the first half of 2008 turned into a big deficit in the second. 

Now let’s look at game sales. Looking only at the monthly number one titles, here there are:

NPD 2008: Monthly Number One's

NPD 2008: Monthly Number One's

The ‘sea of green’ will make Microsoft very happy indeed, although the Wii did very respectably with only two entries out of 12. Sony will be disappointed that Little Big Planet and Resistance did not take the number one spot. And with their only number one title occurring in the first half of the year, it further underlines the loss of momentum in the second half.

But only looking at the number one titles don’t really tell us all that much. By extending it to the top 10, we then have the following breakdown in terms of the number of titles sold for each format:

• Wii: 22,077,100 (46.61%)
• Xbox 360: 18,924,600 (39.95%)
• PS3: 6,367,200 (13.44%)

NPD 2008: Monthly Top 10

Nintendo’s domination is now showing up, because Wii Play, Wii Fit and Mario Kart always makes the top 10. The Xbox 360 is still holding on admirably, and the PS3 is doing better because it is now managing to get one or two titles in the top 10 (but as mentioned before, only once at the number one spot). 

But even just looking at the top 10 doesn’t give us a whole picture of the actual top 10 for the year (just the ones that made it to the top 10 for each month, so a game that’s number 11 for all 12 months might actually turn out to be the number one selling game of the year). Luckily, NPD provided the 2008 yearly top 10, and here they are:

NPD 2008: Yearly Top 10

NPD 2008: Yearly Top 10

The Wii domination is now fully showing, with the top 4 titles all Wii ones, but unfortunately for third party publishers, they’re all Nintendo titles. The second half of the table is dominated by the Xbox 360, but this time it’s better news for publishers as there’s only one Microsoft title (and that was actually Epic Games’). The poor showing for the PS3 continues, with only a single title in the top 10, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV (previously a PlayStation timed exclusive), a multi-platform release that was outsold by the Xbox 360 version by nearly a 1.7 to 1 margin.

So that’s 2008 in charts and graphs. Nintendo for the Gold, Xbox 360 for the Silver and the PS3 for the Bronze.

The December 2008 NPD figures are in, and this month represents the peak in terms of sales before a huge drop off that will occur in January. It’s still the same picture as December, with everything up by compared to November. You can read last month’s analysis here. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

The figures for US sales in December are below, ranked in order of number of sales (December 2007 figures also shown, including percentage change):

NPD December 2008 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of December 2008)

My prediction last month was:

Steady as she goes, is my prediction for next month. I can’t see PlayStation Home, a beta at that, helping to sell too many PS3s, and with no price drops in view, I can’t see the current situation change much.

And that’s largely the case. The only “surprise” is that the DS managed to outsell the Wii, which isn’t all that surprising because that’s what happened at the same time last year as well. Once again, we see the PlayStation console numbers in red because sales dropped compared to the same time last year – that’s now happened in both November and December so it’s definitely a trend, rather than an outlier. The good news for Sony is that the percentage difference between last year and now aren’t as bad as last month, with both the PSP and PS3’s percentage drops in single digits. The PS2 continues its slide into oblivion though, selling at only 37% of last year’s numbers (which admittedly, were still quite strong).

More than 5 million units of Wii and DS were sold in December, which is simply amazing. Last year’s numbers were amazing enough too, at nearly 4 million combined, but the 3rd Christmas after the Wii’s release, it is selling even stronger. The greater sales numbers could be a sign that Wii manufacturing has finally caught up to demand, because availability over the previous two holiday periods was a major issue.

The Xbox 360 did well, and managed to outsell last year’s respectable numbers. It just missed out on outselling the PS3 by a 2 to 1 margin, by 12,000 units, but if you had told Microsoft earlier in the year that they would be selling neck and neck with the PS3, let alone nearly doubling it in sales, they would have taken it. Not quite pulling a rabbit out of the hat, because price drops are easy but you can only do it so many times, but the change of direction early on in the year to try and emulate the Wii’s success seems to have paid off.  

The less said about the PlayStation brand the better for this month. Sony will hope that future price cuts and their 10 year plan will start to bear fruit this year, and I think it will (the price cuts especially). 

Otherwise there’s nothing else to be said that I didn’t already say last month, so let’s get to the software figures. Wii Play has been selling amazingly ever since it debuted, and this month is no exception, except it’s now the number 1 selling software of the month. To be fair, Wii Play is at an advantage compared to all other titles, because it really is a must-have for the Wii, and not even because of the actual software either. The Wii is a multi player console, and so almost everyone need to buy another Wii Remote and Wii Play is the perfect way to do it. Other than this, Call of Duty: World at War continues to sell strong, just like this time last year when CoD4 was the top selling title. And pretty much all of last month’s top 10’s returned, except for Resistance 2 and Wii Music. Both titles are replaced by the “oldie” Mario Kart DS, which is a bit of a surprise. The new Wii Animal Crossing title also did well. The Wii won comfortably this month by taking 55.9% of all sales in the top 10, compared to the Xbox 360’s 31.6%, and only 6.2% for the PS3. Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

1. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 1,460,000
2. Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360, Activision Blizzard) – 1,330,000
3. Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 999,000   
4. Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 979,000
5. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Wii, Activision Blizzard) – 850,000
6. Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) – 745,000
7. Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360, Electronic Arts) – 629,000
8. Mario Kart (DS, Nintendo) – 540,000
9. Call of Duty: World at War (PS3, Activision Blizzrd) – 533,000
10. Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii, Nintendo) – 497,000

Next month will see a huge drop in terms of sales, which is part of the usual cycle. Stock availability could affect sales, and usually the better selling consoles will do worse in January compared to the lower selling ones that still have plenty of stock left. So if Wii, DS and Xbox 360 sales struggle, while PS3 sales improve in comparison despite no popular new games or price cuts, then this is one possible explanation. 

Another blog post will be up soon which looks at the 2008  in review.

See you next month.