DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

The November 2008 NPD figures are in, and this has been a bumper month for game console sales, breaking some records in the process. The overall picture is pretty predictable though, but still, some of the numbers are simply amazing, especially given how soft the retail sector is supposed to be right now. 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 November are below, ranked in order of number of sales (November 2007 figures also shown, including percentage change):

NPD November 2008 Game Console US Sales Figures

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

My prediction last month was:

No big surprises next month, I don’t think, so I won’t even bother making a prediction. Same as before. Which I guess is a prediction of sorts.

There weren’t any big surprises in the order of most popular consoles, compared to October, but were a few big surprises. Some very good, some just good and some that’s quite bad.

Let’s start with the very good, and just look at those Nintendo numbers. Wow! I’ve included November 2007’s sales figures as well for comparison reasons, and Wii sales grew a massive 108%! That’s right, it doubled in sales and then some. The DS did less well, but still maintained last year’s amazing numbers. That makes the Wii the most wanted device of the holiday period three times in a row now. To compare how amazing selling more than 2 million Wiis is, less than 4 million Blu-ray players were sold in the entire 2008 period! So the Wii sold more in one month than Blu-ray in six, even though Blu-ray players are now dropping to prices below that of the Wii.

Then we have the less excellent, but still good surprise and that’s the Xbox 360 managing to outsell the same period from last year by 9%. That may not sounds as good as 108% (!), but the Xbox 360 started the year very badly and it looked like this was going to be the year that the PS3 spanked the 360, but then with a few strategic price cuts, the NXE, some hit games (see below), it fought back extremely well. The Xbox 360 is quickly establishing itself as the current-gen console of choice for “serious” gamers (and by serious, I mean those that have probably more than one console at have, have owned a previous-gen console, and those that actually care about the fact that the Wii is not HD). Well maybe not the console of choice, that’s a bit early to tell, but at the very least, it’s in with a shout, which is more than what you can say for the original Xbox. Microsoft will be pleased, no doubt, because they know they’re not really competing with the Wii – they’re competing with Sony’s PS3.

And of course, there’s always a chance of a bit of bad news. Unfortunately, all 3 pieces of it came Sony’s way this month. Compared to the same time 2007, all 3 of Sony’s gaming devices dropped in sales. And they weren’t just superficial drops, but significant ones – 19 (PS3), 25 (PSP) and a massive 58% of the PS2. The Sony “eco-system”, to borrow the term from Microsoft, isn’t look too healthy. Of course, this is just a month, and we’re comparing current-gen consoles to a previous gen one (PS2), as well as two other “premium” (read: expensive) alternatives to other similar devices, and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that expensive stuff sells less as well than cheap stuff in harsh economic times. What is worrying is that, for the PS3 at least, it wasn’t even able to maintain last year’s sales figures, despite prices dropping, value increasing, and Blu-ray now selling 4 times as many as last year. That’s negative growth, a recession, if you will. And to let your main rival, the 360, sell twice as many console as you do in the crucial holiday sales period, that’s just not good enough. Especially if it’s because you decided to release an even more expensive SKU (the 160GB) when people want value, not features. PlayStation Home, a beta just released a few days ago (why still beta? It’s been in the works for years!), will help, but then again LittleBigPlanet was supposed to help as well, and it didn’t, falling completely off the sales charts this month (see below).

I don’t want to keep going on about it, especially when everyone else is doing so as well, but having a Blu-ray drive in the PS3 seems like a mistake, at least from the console war point of view. It has helped Blu-ray win the format war, but the other Blu-ray manufacturers are now not happy about the PS3 being the Blu-ray player of choice, and Sony may have to keep the PS3 prices high to placate them. And do games really need Blu-ray? Probably not this generation, especially if you look at all the hit games that have managed to say under 8 GB. I still think a Blu-ray drive would have made more sense in the PS4, and perhaps the PS3 could have had different SKUs that had built in Blu-ray drives for movie playback (only), while the mainstream version is cheap and uses good old DVDs. This would still help Blu-ray in the HD format war, but no hinder the PS3 in the console war. Sony’s hope is that the PS3 will remain competitive and become the PS4 due to software updates and other innovations, which I guess is not all that unrealistic and perhaps their big plan all along. We’ll have to wait and see if this works, because Microsoft can come out with a Xbox 720 or whatever, with Blu-ray playback and the “sexiness” of the PS3 probably for cheaper, and then Sony is back to square one.

Now let’s look at the software sales charts, and the very good surprise here is for Microsoft. The number one and number two titles all belonged to the Xbox 360, selling a combined of nearly 3 million copies, that’s more than 1.2 million more than GTA IV, this year’s best selling game. That’s especially good for Microsoft because one of these titles, Call of Duty: World at War, is actually a multi-platform release, meaning they are winning in an area that counts for game developers when they decide how much effort each multi-platform release will get. To compare in more detail, the PS3’s best selling game this month was also CoD: WaW, but it was outsold by the Xbox 360 version by a 2.3:1 margin.  That’s even more amazing when you consider that for hardware numbers, the Xbox 360 only outnumbers the PS3 by 2:1 – so this shows that Xbox 360 gamers buy more games than PS3 owners, and games is where the money is at. And CoD: WaW is actually more expensive on the Xbox 360, at least on Amazon. The number 1 title was of course Gears of War 2, a Microsoft exclusive, which is great news for Microsoft’s game developers as well. Sony’s response to Gears of War was Resistance, and the sequel to that hit game was also released this month, making it the other PS3 game in the top 10, but selling considerably worse than GoW2. Both are exclusives to the platforms, and one sold 4 times as many as the other with only twice as many consoles. And where’s LittleBigPlanet? In fact, even the other Xbox 360 exclusive, Left 4 Dead, outsold Resistance 2. Left 4 Dead is developed by gaming giant EA, but no PS3 version was produced. The Nintendo hits are still all there, with Wii Music creeping in at number 10. All they need is a Wii Sports 2 and they will lock up a huge share of the software charts for a long time to come. Overall, the Xbox 360 held 46.5% of the top 10, the Wii closely behind at 40% while the PS3 lags behind at 13.5%. Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

1. Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) – 1,560,000
2. Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360, Activision Blizzard) – 1,410,000
3. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 796,000
4. Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 697,000   
   
5. Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 637,000
6. Call of Duty: World at War (PS3, Activision Blizzard) – 597,000
7. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Wii, Activision Blizzard) – 475,000
8. Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360, Electronic Arts) – 231,000
9. Resistance 2 (PS3, Sony) – 215,000
10. Wii Music (Wii, Nintendo) – 202,000

Welcome to another edition of our monthly NPD US game console sales figure analysis. We are going through what is traditionally a quiet period in terms of video game sales, but thanks to the Wii and the competition between the Xbox 360 and PS3, sales are still strong compared to the same period last year. Microsoft introduced their price cut this month, so it will be interesting to see if there was any effect. Read on to find out. 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 July are below, ranked in order of number of sales:

NPD July 2008 Game Console US Sales Figures

 

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

My prediction last month was this:

I’m going to go for a very similar situation to this month, except PS3 sales may drop a little due to MGS4 sales dropping off. Wii to dominate, PS3 to come second, and the Xbox 360 to struggle a bit as price cuts only come into effect half way through July.

With all things considered, it was pretty accurate. PS3 sales did drop almost by half (down 45%), but it was still enough to beat the Xbox 360 for the third month running. As expected also, the Wii still dominated, although it too experienced a sales drop (down 17%). The Xbox 360 held up better (down 7%), but as the price cuts only affected about half of the days that was included in the “July” figures, it is unknown whether it was enough to have taken the 360 above the PS3 had the cut happened at the beginning of July.

What is clear is that Microsoft still needs to do more if it is to keep up with the PS3, which still has a lot of potential to be discovered. The price cut, re-design of the dashboard, video streaming services, the more family oriented approach, bringing more previously PS3 exclusives on-board like the Final Fantasy series, will all help, but it’s hard to say if it is enough. Microsoft did have good news this week in Japan, where it topped the PS3 for the first time, all thanks to a single game release (Tales of Vesperia). So good software release can drive sales, and if the rumours that Microsoft is working on a Wii like device, then a Wii Sport like title may drive sales even further.

Wii sales did drop, and some sectors of the media decided this is just the first of many drops to come for the Wii as the hype fades. I don’t think this will be the case, because the Wii is genuinely fun and this will always attract users, even when the hype disappears.

The MGS4 led surge in PS3 sales predictably dropped, but it is still doing quite well in comparison to the Xbox 360. But this may not be enough. Just because the PS3 can easily beat a struggling competitor that may have already gone past its sales peak doesn’t mean that it can be classified a total success. For the PS3 to be dominant like the PS2, it still needs to reach much higher sales number, closer to that of the Wii. I think this will come as more software, peripherals become available, and when the PS2 reaches its end of life.

Let’s look at the software charts, where Microsoft had a relatively good month. Thanks to its almost exactly 2:1 total console lead over the PS3, it is still out-selling the PS3 on multi-platform titles. The number one title was a Xbox 360 release as well. MGS4 on the PS3 completely disappeared from the charts. The Wii, now the best selling console in the US, still had the overall lead. The Wii had 40.3% of the top 10 titles by units sold, the Xbox 360 had 31% and the PS3 with 16.2. The rest was for Activision’s Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS, a surprise hit whose sale is going strong for the second month running. The surprise title on the charts is Take Two’s Civilization Revolution, a traditionally weak type of games on consoles (turn based strategy) – with consoles becomes more and more PC like in hardware and functionality, games that are better played on PCs may make a good transition to consoles provided the control interface is suitably tweaked, as it has been with Revolution. Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

1. NCAA Football 09 (Xbox 360, EA) – 397,600
2. Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 369,600 
3. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Nintendo DS, Activision) – 309,700
4. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 284,000
5. NCAA Football 09 (PS3, EA) – 242,500
6. Soul Calibur IV (Xbox 360, Namco) – 218,900
7. Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 174,500
8. Rock Band (Wii, EA) – 165,800
9. Soul Calibur IV (PS3, Namco) – 155,800
10. Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360, Take Two) – 147,600

And finally, the prediction for next month. I have no idea, honestly. I think it will be somewhat similar, maybe the Xbox 360 can overtake the PS3, maybe it won’t. There won’t be any dramatic changes, I don’t think. We are quickly approaching the peak period of sales, the holiday season, and things will be much clearer at that time than right now. See you next month.