DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

It’s that time of the month again. The June 2008 NPD sales figures are out, and there are a few interesting happenings this month. E3 has just concluded, and the Xbox 360 was the winner of this year’s event, although it wasn’t one for the books with very few innovations and surprises, not even from Nintendo. But perhaps Microsoft needed that E3, as you will find from this month’s figures the Xbox 360 isn’t doing very well, not compared to the Wii and not the PS3. Could this be the start of a new trend, or is it just a one off due to the strong software line-up Sony had in June (MGS4). 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 June are below, ranked in order of number of sales:

NPD June 2008 Game Console US Sales Figures

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

 As you can see from the figures and graphs above, it was a great month for the PS3 (and it was pretty good in software sales too, see below). While the Wii maintained it’s high sales figures way above that of both the PS3 and Xbox 360 combined, PS3 sales exploded nearly doubling last month’s effort. Due to this, it comfortably beat the Xbox 360, again nearly twice as many sales. This should be worrying for Microsoft as 2008 has been a great year for the PS3, and a very average one for the 360. While Microsoft blamed stock shortages early on, there aren’t any excuses for the last few months.

When put into this context, the recent price drops and the good showing at E3 is now all the more important for the Redmond based company, as it needs to regain the momentum it had last year when it trounced the PS3 for months at a time. The E3 offerings, including snatching the previously PlayStation exclusive Final Fantasy XIII from Sony’s grasps, securing a free movie streaming service for Xbox Live Gold users from Netflix, and re-designing the 360 Dashboard to try and steal some customers from the Wii.

While Sony can be extremely pleased with recent performances, it needs to be said that June’s performance was largely, if not solely, based on the strong sales for Metal Gear Solid 4, a PS3 exclusive. This is pretty much the first PS3 exclusive title that has reached top spot on the software charts, and if Sony can bring out a few more titles like this, then it can keep the momentum going well into next year. Microsoft had a similar bumper month when Halo 3 was released, but as history tells us, it didn’t last very long. Microsoft, on the other hand, did not have any must-have releases of the same ilk, although Ninja Gaiden II did well.

Going away from the PS3/360, the “Nintendo Family” consisting of the Wii and DS again did extremely well. The PSP also nearly doubled in sales, and it’s easy to see why Sony is concentrating on promoting the “PlayStation Family”. There is no Xbox family though, as Microsoft does not have a handheld device to compete, although one would say that the DS and PSP does seem to have the handheld market locked down.

Let’s have a detailed look at the software charts. Sony’s dominance due to MGS4 is clear to see below, snatching 20.4% of the top 10 sales. The Xbox 360 didn’t do that much poorer though, with two titles in the top 10 and 19% of the sales. The Wii again is the winner with 35% and no less than 4 titles in the top 10. Two DS and one PS2 title rounds off the top 10, including Guitar Hero: On Tour for the DS at a high number 2 – it’s even better news for Nintendo because this was not a first party game like most of its other top 10 titles. In fact, the Wii had 2 titles in the top 10 not published by Nintendo, so there’s another criticism of the Wii crossed off the (now very small) list. I know I say this about 10 times every NPD analysis, but again it’s been a good month for Nintendo.

1. Metal Gear Solid IV (PS3, Konami) – 774,600
2. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Nintendo DS, Activision) – 422,300
3. Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360, Tecmo/MGS) – 372,700
4. Wii Fit w/Board (Wii, Nintendo) – 372,700 
5. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 359,100
6. Battlefield: Bad Company (Xbox 360, EA) – 346,800 
7. Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii, Nintendo) – 322,400
8. Lego Indiana Jones (Wii, Lucasarts) – 294,500
9. Lego Indiana Jones (DS, Lucasarts) – 267,800
10. Lego Indiana Jones (PS2, Lucasarts) – 260,300

 So that’s it for the month of June. I loathe to make a prediction next month, but with all things considered, 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. See you next month.

The April 2008 NPD game console sales figures for the US has been released. This is the first month to include GTA IV numbers (albeit only the last few days of April), and there’s also Mario Kart on the Wii as well. A bumper month that is dominated by GTA IV in terms of software sales, but the hardware figures tell a different story. My prediction last months was this:

… the 360 will do very well in April due to GTA IV, if not in hardware sales, then in software sales … What’s really interesting is to see if the Wii will continue to have another good month, or will it suffer from not being on the GTA IV bandwagon? But then there’s Mario Kart, so you never know.

I think my prediction could be considered correct, although barely. It’s certainly more accurate than that guy Pachter over Wedbush Morgan, who predicted twice in a row that the PS3 would outsell the 360, but has been wrong twice in a row. 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 April are below, ranked in order of number of sales:

From the hardware results, it looks like that April was another great month for the Wii and that GTA IV had no positive effect on hardware sales at all. In fact, hardware sales for both PS3 and the Xbox 360 were down compared to the previous month. This is something no analyst had predicted, and it is a bit of a surprise. Perhaps May will tell us more, as maybe people were waiting for buy GTA IV hardware bundles which will be available in May. It is also worth noting that March included 5 weeks of sales results, whereas April only includes 4 (but this alone does not explain the 360/PS3 drop).

Whatever the reasons, the 360 again out-sold the PS3, although by only 1,000 units or so. There hasn’t been this GTA led surge in PS3 sales as some have predicted due to people upgrading their PS2’s to play the previously PlayStation signature title. Again, perhaps that will materialize in the May figures instead. Another explanation could be that people who are likely to buy GTA games are those more likely to have already bought themselves a PS3/360, and so there’s no hardware sales surge coming. My opinion in that May will be the month to watch if you want to see GTA related hardware sales figures, as people without a PS3/360 will look at the GTA related fanfare, wait until the expected price drops/bundles occur, and then get themselves a new console with GTA IV included. This would explain why the software chart was dominated by GTA IV, yet the hardware chart went the opposite way.

What can you say about the Wii that people haven’t already said? Amazing sales performance and seems to be getting stronger the longer it goes. The Wii almost double the sales of the PS3 and 360 combined (that’s nearly four times the sales of each of these consoles). Aiming a game console at the non gaming market was a stroke of genius (of course had it failed, we would call it something else entirely). Wii sales have been helped by Wii Fit and Mario Kart, two hit titles that was arriving in late April/early May and which may have laid the foundations for April’s Wii hardware performance.

Now onto software sales, where as mentioned before, GTA IV dominated. And it’s a huge victory for the 360, when most analysts expected a close race between the 360 and PS3 versions of the game, with some even suggesting the PS3 will benefit more. Here’s the top 10 chart:

1. Grand Theft Auto IV(Xbox 360, Rockstar) – 1,850,000
2. Mario Kart w/ Wheel(Wii, Nintendo) – 1,120,000
3. Grand Theft Auto IV(PS3, Rockstar) – 1,000,000
4. Wii Play (Wii, Nintendo) – 360,000
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, Nintendo) – 326,000
6. Gran Turismo 5:  Prologue(PS3, Sony) – 224,000 
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon:  Explorers of Darkness (DS, Nintendo) – 202,000
8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon:  Explorers of Time (DS, Nintendo) – 202,000
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Activision) – 152,100
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360, Activision) – 141,000

While GTA IV certainly dominated, it was Nintendo again the winner as they had 4 titles in the top 10. The Xbox 360 had 35.7% of all software sales, closely followed by the Wii on 35.1. PS3 software sales remain relatively poor at 22% while the DS rounded out things on 7.2%.

The Xbox 360 version of GTA IV sold 1.85:1 compared to the PS3 version, which is a little bit less than the 2:1 ratio some analysts have claimed. This is not as bad as it seems for the PS3, as the Xbox 360 has a 70/30 lead over the PS3 in hardware sales, but only a 65/35 lead when it came to GTA IV sales. But I suppose that’s little comfort for Sony whose fortunes where definitely helped by the GTA series being timed exclusives on the PS2. As for all those that predicted the PS3 version would outsell the Xbox 360 version due to people upgrading their PS2’s, that may happen but it won’t be sudden and I think if people are happy with their PS2’s, they won’t upgrade to PS3’s no matter what (unless it becomes dirt cheap).

What could be considered disappointing for Wii is that third-party games don’t seem to sell well on the platform. All the best selling titles are first-party games by Nintendo, and this can’t go on for too long without developers turning their resources to the other consoles. You will have to admit that nobody really knows how to exploit the Wii as well as Nintendo, and the Wii is an extremely difficult system to get things right on (ensuring games work well with the Wii-mote and nunchuck is a much bigger design challenge than most developers are used to).

So it’s all eyes on May yet again. Will the Wii continue to perform as well, or will the GTA led hardware surge materialize?  Can the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV retain the 1.85:1 sales ratio compared to the PS3 version, or as some emerging reports tell us, could the lead actually grow wider? My prediction? I’d rather not, since most of us got it wrong for April when it came to GTA led hardware sales. But predictions are free, and I have no reputation to protect anyway so here’s goes: I predict there to be a 360/PS3 sales surge compared to this month (well it can’t go any lower, can it?). But the Wii sales will remain high, if not go higher thanks to Wii Fit (does that count as a software or hardware, or accessory?). GTA IV will continue to dominate the software charts, with the 360’s lead slightly narrowed compared to the PS3 version. Mario Kart and Wii Fit will sit highly on the software sales chart too (assuming Wii Fit counts as software). So it’s yet another wiin for Nintendo, I suspect.

See you next month.

The March 2008 NPD game console sales figures for the US has been released. It’s another month where all sides claim victory, and I guess it’s hard not to when the overall market has increased by a huge margin over the same time last year. I did predict last month that the Xbox 360 will out-sell the PS3, but barely, so was I right or was I wrong? 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 March are below, ranked in order of number of sales:

A couple of surprises this month. First, just look at those Wii sales figures! Amazing! You would think the “hype” surrounding the Wii would end by now, after two holiday sales periods where it was the “must-have” item, but it just continues to grow stronger where this month, it out-sells both the 360 and PS3 combined! The other surprise was that, despite expert predictions, the Xbox 360 did in fact reverse the last two month’s trend and out-sell the PS3, albeit by the width of a hair. Could Microsoft’s excuse about stock problems actually be correct?

The PS3 came fifth this month, with only the PS2 behind it, which must be somewhat disappointing for Sony. Sony will say that compared to this time last year, the PS3 is doing much better compared to the 360, and that’s true: the 360’s next-gen market share has dropped from 51% to just 43% since September last year, with the PS3 gaining from 14% to 18%. But these stats are a bit of a lie (aren’t they all), since the Xbox 360’s market share had to drop considering it was the first next-gen console on the market and with 100% of the market share at the beginning, the only way was down. What is worrying for the PS3 is that while the 360 had a period which it totally dominated the next-gen market (first when it was the only console available, and then for the PS3’s fragile first few months), the PS3 has not had a comparable period. Despite the technical superiority that the PS3 has over the 360, the sheer number of 360’s on the market plus the much more mature Xbox Live multiplayer service means that the Microsoft now has a solid footing in the gaming arena which is something they didn’t have with the original Xbox. Quantity has a quality of its own, as someone once said, and that’s what the 360 earned by having an earlier release date. On a side note, looking into popular culture, how many times have you spotted someone playing the 360 on TV or in movies? South Park, Disturbia, Transformers are just some of the recent shows/movies I’ve watched where the 360 was featured. I’m sure that helps to sell consoles as well, despite all the bad press over the RRoD problems.

And Microsoft raised a point about “ecosystems” last month, where they said console performance should not just be based on hardware sales figures, but also on software and community. In this respect, Microsoft has a very healthy “ecosystem”, but it doesn’t mean the other companies do not. Nintendo is building something very strong with the Wii/DS combination, and Sony with the PS3/PS2/PSP combination. If anything, Microsoft needs a portable game console to compete directly with Nintendo and Sony to fully take advantage of their better online gaming system.

But Microsoft are right in that while hardware sales haven’t been great compared to either the Wii or the PS3, it’s the software sales that’s really driving the Xbox brand at the moment. Here’s the top 10 sales chart for games:

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, Nintendo) – 2,700,000
2. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Xbox 360, Ubisoft) – 752,300
3. Army of Two (Xbox 360, EA) – 606,100
4. Wii Play (Wii, Nintendo) – 409,800
5. God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP, SCEA) – 340,500
6. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP, Square Enix) – 301,600
7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Activision) – 264,100
8. Major League Baseball 2K8 (Xbox 360, 2K Sports) – 237,100
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360, Activision) – 237,000
10. Army of Two (PS3, EA) – 224,900

Another good surprise for Nintendo, as Super Smash Bros. Brawl outsold everything by miles – one of the criticisms of the Wii is that it doesn’t have good games that sell in great number, but I think this myth has been dispelled this month. Other than that, the 360 has 4 of the top 10, and all of them are multi-platform games that are available on the PS3. The PSP did well this month too with two titles in the top 10, but the PS3 is still struggling with only one title, and at the bottom too.

Last month, I predicted the 360 would out-sell the PS3 by a small margin, based on nothing but a gut feeling. I was right (well even a broken clock is right 730 times a year). I also said last month that the 360 will do very well in April due to GTA IV, if not in hardware sales, then in software sales, and I’m sticking with this prediction. What’s really interesting is to see if the Wii will continue to have another good month, or will it suffer from not being on the GTA IV bandwagon? But then there’s Mario Kart, so you never know.

See you next month.

The February 2008 NPD game console sales figures for the US has been released. This month, all sides have claimed victory, and after reading this analysis, you might come to the same conclusion as well. 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 are below, ranked in order of number of sales:

Apparently, this month’s results showed that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are all winners. It’s obvious why Nintendo would claim this. Both the DS and the Wii sold in large numbers again, claiming first and second place. The DS claimed 71% of the portable gaming market, while the Wii claimed an equally impressive 45% of the next-gen console market, outdoing the previous two months’ efforts.

Sony has also claimed victory because for the second month running, the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360. Last month it was by 39,000 units, this month 26,000 units. Since I started doing this feature on the blog, the PS3’s monthly market share has jumped from just under 11% (in September 2007) to now a very healthy 29%. The Blu-ray victory appears to have had the intended effect, and Sony will be pleased with its efforts so far in 2008.

However, it may sound strange, but Microsoft has also claimed victory this month, despite coming last in the next-gen console war. As with last month, Microsoft is claiming stock shortages are the cause and that April will be the soonest that they can ensure stock is no longer a problem. Cynics might suggest that it’s just an excuse, while there does seem to be some data which suggest the claim has some validity. Regardless, the trend in the last few months have been decline in monthly market share for the 360, starting from September 2007: 45%, 36%, 35%, 37%, 30% and now finally, 26%. But to be fair, the one month that bucked the trend, December with 37%, was the month with the highest volume of sales, so if Microsoft had been expecting something like 33% in December, and got 37% instead, it does explain why they might be caught short-handed in January and now in February as well (that extra 4% equals more than 136,000 units). But excuses, whether real or not, can only last for so long and if the 360 does not outsell the PS3 in March or in April, then we will know who is telling the truth and who is not. So why is Microsoft still claiming victory? Well, it’s the software sales that will give Microsoft some encouragement.

Five of the top 10 selling games in February were Xbox 360 titles, including previously PlayStation exclusive, Devil May Cry (4), which perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, outsold the PS3 version. The PS3 version of DMC4 was the only PS3 title to make the top 10, with 2 Wii titles, 1 DS and even 1 PS2 title making the top 10. The top 10 games sold in February were:

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360, Activision) – 296,200
2. Devil May Cry 4 (Xbox 360, Capcom) – 295,200
3. Wii Play (Wii, Nintendo) – 289,700
4. Devil May Cry 4 (PS3, Capcom) – 233,500
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Activision) – 222,900
6. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS, Sega) – 205,600
7. Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360, Microsoft) – 203,600
8. Turok (Xbox 360, Touchstone) -197,700
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2, Activision) – 183,800
10. Rock Band (Xbox 360, MTV Games, Electronic Arts) – 161,800

So Microsoft do have something to smile about, and their earlier efforts to release the console before all others seems to have paid off. By having the most number of consoles, software sales will come naturally and Microsoft again was the most profitable company out of the 3. With almost exactly 50% of sales in the top 10, it’s hard not to be.

Predictions tell us that the Xbox 360 will regain its lead over the PS3, although barely, with April being a better months for Microsoft. The release of GTA IV in late April will also be interesting, especially to gauge whether the PS3 version or the Xbox 360 version (with exclusive content) will sell better. A good GTA IV led sales campaign might just help one console to dominate the rest of 2008.

See you next month.