Big 3 Shipment Update Through 3/2009, Sneak Peak at FY 3/2010 - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 14 May 2009 / 5,033 Views
Jacob Mazel
Quarterly Shipment Update
Note: Since Microsoft does not release software shipment breakdowns by quarter, the majority of the focus will be on Sony and Nintendo in the paragraphs below due simply to providing more data.
For the March 2009 quarter, software and hardware shipments remained excellent industry wide. Nintendo systems and games on those systems once again accounted for more than half the software and hardware shipped in the world in the quarter. The Xbox 360 did manage to outship the PS3 though for the three month period, despite something of a PS3 resurgence in Japan during the period.
|
Platform |
J-M 2009 |
|
Wii |
40.80m |
|
DS |
33.54m |
|
X360 |
23.00m |
|
PS3 |
18.90m |
|
PS2 |
11.30m |
|
PSP |
11.20m |
|
Shipments |
SW |
|
Platform |
J-M 2009 |
|
DS |
5.56m |
|
Wii |
5.43m |
|
PSP |
2.12m |
|
X360 |
1.70m |
|
PS3 |
1.61m |
|
PS2 |
1.38m |
|
Shipments |
HW |
Lifetime to date Nintendo has shipped 101.78m DS through March 2009, alongside 50.39m Wii . Sony has shipped 137.70m PS2s to date (1.4m in the March 2009 quarter ), about 51m PSPs (based on 50m PSPs shipped through January ), and 22.73m PS3s . Microsoft has shipped 30.20m Xbox 360s.
Nintendo has shipped 566.92m DS games and 353.02m Wii games to date . Sony has shipped 174.9m PS3 games, over 1.45b PS2 games, and about 210m PSP games (based on 200m PSP games shipped through January ). Microsoft, based on our estimates, has shipped about 250m Xbox 360 games.
As has been the case for years now, the Wii and DS continue to track similarly in terms of hardware shipments, and the Xbox 360 and PS3 perform similarly as well.
The major difference though, lies in the attach rates. Here is how figures from Nintendo and Sony have trended.
The Wii attach rate has grown about one game per year. In March 2007 it was about five games per owner. For March 2008, it was about six games per owner. In the latest data, for March 2009 it stood at seven games per owner. Unlike the forecast for software figures, software totals (and therefore attach rates) do include the bundled Wii Sports. If that figure grows to eight games per owner in March 2010 (up one game) on 26m more Wiis, there will be about 595m, not ~573m, Wii games sold to retail.
The PS3 attach rate has grown at a faster clip. It has been jumping about two games per year. It went from 3.7 in March 2007, to 5.6 in March 2008, to 7.7 in March 2009. If that rate grew to 9.7 in March 2010, on ~36m PS3s, then something like 175m PS3 games would ship for the year, instead of the ~145m I have estimated for the year.
The DS attach rate has grown at a slowing clip. In March 2005, the attach rate was two. By March 2006 it reached 3.6. But by March 2007 it had only risen to 4.6. In March 2008 it grew to 5.2. Through March 2009 it stands at 5.6. With DS likely to top 150m units though, the system should have no issues reaching 1b games shipped. Nonetheless, DS is already the third most successful gaming platform for software ever.
FY 3/2009 Review, FY 3/2010 Preview
Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have released their shipment data for the year ending March 2009. An astonishing amount of both videogame hardware and videogame software was shipped by the big three in the March 2009 year. The year saw 57 out of all 100 video game systems shipped made by Nintendo.
DS – 31.18m
Wii – 25.95m
PSP – 14.11m
X360 – 11.20m
PS3 – 10.08m
PS2 – 7.91m
GBA – 0.39m
Even though DS, Wii, PSP and PS2 marginally came in lower than Nintendo and Sony expected for the year, the six systems totaled 100.8m units.
An argument can be made that Sony missed its PS3 shipments as well because the company changed the definition of its fiscal year by one week (likely the final week of the quarters) to meet its fiscal year target of 10m PS3 in March 2009 after missing its PS3 target forecasts the previous years
Initial PS3 Historical Data:
Based on the initial data, Sony should have topped 22.85m PS3s through March 2009. But with the revised data, the company is below that figure despite shipping over 10m PS3s.
Revised PS3 Historical Data (updated last night)
Across that entire period, except for the GBA’s paltry 390,000 units each of these systems sold for over $100.
For the March 2010 fiscal year, based on Nintendo’s and Sony’s forecasts, and estimates for the Xbox 360 the industry should see comparable figures.
DS – 30m
Wii – 26m
PSP – 15m
PS3 – 13m
X360 – 10m
PS2 – 5m
The figures estimated would total 99m, within 2% of the March 2009 hardware shipment total. However, the PS2 will be cheaper for the entire year, PS3 will likely get a price cut, and Xbox 360 probably will too as the September 2008 to March 2009 X360 comparison will be tough for Microsoft to beat otherwise. Wii should hold steady at both the same price and same volume as last year according to Nintendo. That leaves the rumored new PSP model which could sell for more money and the more expensive DSi to try to offset the unit sale, and price based declines in revenue for the PS2 and the possible revenue declines for PS3 and X360.
With PS3 and PSP shipments down so far in fiscal year March 2010, Sony will need to reinvigorate both platforms to meet the numbers it has projected. For PS3 this probably means a $50 price cut worldwide in October, or a targeted $100 price cut in the Americas. On the PSP front, Sony will likely introduce the long-rumored PSP-Go/PSP-4000 model in the fall as well. That should leave two quarters for PS3 and PSP which are down year over year, and two which are up. The DS figure is down, but the system now retails for $170 instead of $130 because of the DSi model, which means Nintendo is still growing the DS business. PS2 has almost hit its saturation at 137.7m through March but it continues to buoy Sony’s game business. In March 2010, if Sony and Nintendo meet their PS2 and DS projections, PS2 will stand at 142.7m while DS will be at 131.8m. During the March 2011 year, DS should be able to outsell PS2 by at least 10.9m which will make it the best selling videogame system ever. PS2 has held the record since the second half of 2007 when it overtook the Game Boy line (118.7m) as the best selling videogame system.
Software figures for the year ending March 2009 were also staggering. Over 700m games were shipped for the platforms. Nintendo’s platforms alone topped 400m.
Wii – 204.58m
DS – 197.31m
X360 – 125m (estimated)
PS3 – 103.7m
PS2 – 83.5m
PSP – 50.3m
GBA – 0.62m
An amazing 765m videogames shipped for the year. For some context, as recently as the year ending March 2003, the entire videogame software market had never topped 400m units in a single year. In the March 2008 year, videogame software shipments totaled only 678m, meaning software shipments increased by nearly 15% worldwide, year to year.
For the fiscal year ending March 2010, Nintendo expects to ship 220m Wii games, 180m DS games. Sony expects to ship 240m PS3 + PS2 + PSP games. Microsoft software shipments should come in around 145m. If we break down the numbers we get:
Wii - 220m (forecast does not include ~24.5m Wii Sports according to Iwata *)
DS - 180m
PS3 - 145m (more on this below)
X360 - 145m (estimated)
PS2 - 55m
PSP - 40m (this figure could be dramatically lower if PSP-Go is digital distribution based)
*
Iwata:
"As for Wii, we anticipate 26 million hardware and 220 million software shipments.
What I would like you to note here in this slide is that while the actual results in the right-hand side include the number of the software that are bundled with Wii hardware sold overseas, the forecasts do not include these bundled software. When we take this fact into consideration, we are actually expecting a 40 million unit increase in our Wii software shipment. "
*
If these forecasts are correct, software shipments will hit 785m units for the year ending March 2010, and about 810m with Wii Sports included.
Software shipments by manufacturer share indicate that the reason for the growth is that despite the massive gains in software shipped for Nintendo’s platforms (see image below), Microsoft continues to gain, and software for Sony systems has not really fallen off very much.
Of course, as was the case for Nintendo with the N64 and GC during the PS1 and PS2 explosion, Sony’s percentage share of software is shrinking because its software totals have not grown in the industry expansion. We can this by looking at software shipments by percentage on a company’s platforms over the years.
With the PS2 accounting for almost 60% of all videogame software shipped worldwide at its peak, it is striking to see Sony down to 31% market share (237.5m/765m) of software despite having three active platforms. On the console front, the software situation is still more competitive.
Nintendo has only just over taken the lead as top software platform on the console side in the year ending March 2009. PS2 game shipments were still 83m for the year which is the main reason the figures were so close. Nintendo expects to ship 220m Wii games in the March 2010 year, while Sony’s entire forecast calls for 240m games across PS2/PS3/PSP. If even 45m of that total ends up going to PSP, console games shipped for Nintendo platforms (Wii) will continue to outnumber those shipped for Sony platforms (PS3 + PS2). Looking way ahead, to fiscal year March 2011, PS2 software shipments should decline to 25m or less. Wii and PS3 software shipments should be up once again for a final time in that year, which should cement Nintendo’s currently tenuous console software shipment lead (204m vs. 187m) at perhaps 260m (Wii) vs. 185m (25m PS2, 160m PS3). If the Xbox 360 base remains larger than the PS3 base, and similarly active there is also the possibility that games built and sold for Microsoft consoles (X360) will overtake games built and sold for Sony consoles, especially as the PS2 software market completely dries up.
Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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seriously, nice work.
this generation is heating up by the quarters.
Unless "peak" in the title is a pun I'm not getting, it should be "peek".
NSS7, DS still does't have the same time in market than PS2, the diference is easy: sales still rising.
Wow, GBA managed to sell almost 400k? :o Amazing!
so i guess vgchartz is way of with some of the game sales in others(it's kinda understandable - way too much market and way too much little stores selling games in europe)
1.45 billions games for PS2. That Amzanig. DS only 1/3 that number.
It is going to be interesting to see what 360 projects for the FY10.
This is an amazing comparison I really liked this!
Ya, VGC might adjust the PS3 up more.
@Slimebeast - Yeah I noticed that as well - PS3 seems slightly undertracked and 360 seems slightly overtracked - not to much of a difference though so VGC has got most of its numbers right
SO shipment gap between PS3 and X360 is only 7.5 million units?
That's much less than the 8.1 million sell throu gap of VGC .
FY2009 best Nintendo year in SW since Sony entered VG, but beating the 70% MS of FY1995 seems impossible...
...but you don't count the other competitors (mostly Atari on consoles)
Does anyone know why Sony bothered to change its old shipment results by quarter to insure that it would meet its 3/2009 target?
Much interesting reading. Awesome article.
So Sony is pretty much GC-like these days? 30%~ market share isn't death, its actually in pretty good shape facing a global crysis!
@Nathlo. That graph doesn't include other companies though, which is why Nintendo seemingly has 100% share.
For instance, the TurboGrafx and the NeoGeo were around for the SNES/MegaDrive days, the TG managed 10 million hardware so it must have sold some software... and the Neo Geo I can't find HW figures for, but it apparently lived for 14 years so it can't be that bad.
thank-you for above numbers and all the work you're put in.
Great article, really interesting
Sure, but it was a much smaller market then. The industry was less than 300m games shipped per year through most of the 1990s. Games made for Nintendo systems shipped as little as 90m units as recently as the year ending March 1998, and that was with SNES games accounting for 15% of Nintendo total.
Your "Percentage of Global SW on Manufacturer Platforms" graph really illustrates how Nintendo lost market share slowly over a long period of time and then is just now slowly gaining some of it back.
It is also interesting to note that Nintendo's worst share they ever had was 30%. It seemed like for almost a decade we heard that Nintendo was dying and wouldn't last long. If 30% is considered almost dead then Sega and Microsoft never even came alive.
It is clear to me now that this was a huge misconception. In today's market with 3 major players I would think if your company carried at least 10% you could be considered viable if not successful.
Interesting.
Ninty Software is amazing.
