Americas Sales for the Two Weeks Ending May 23, 2009 - News

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Jacob Mazel

With Vgchartz revamped, Americas data for the two weeks ending May 23, 2009 has now arrived. For the second week of the period, a number of new games pushed hardware sales up from the week ending May 16, 2009. Nonetheless, both weeks were down compared to the middle of May 2008 when the impacts of Wii Fit, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mario Kart Wii, and other titles were lifting industry sales levels to record seasonal pacing. The week ending May 16, 2009 may end up being the quietest week for video games over the entirety of 2009, as PS2, PS3, PSP and Xbox 360 all sold fewer than 106,000 units, and the Wii barely managed to stay above 200,000 units. Just on a few big releases for this week, worldwide hardware sales are up significantly this week, even without Vgchartz data from available just yet.

In the second week of the period, three games – UFC 2009 Undisputed for PS3 and Xbox 360, Punch Out and EA Sports Active for Wii – provided big lifts for the three current generation consoles. Both versions of UFC 2009 and the Wii games debuted to sales of 100,000 units. With more people than usual shopping for the hot titles, PS2, PSP and DS also saw modest rises for the week. However, in the wake of much more massive software launches in May 2008, hardware sales remain down for most platforms both weeks.

Except for the PS2 and Xbox 360 which are up a few thousands units each compared to Mid May 2008 because they cost less in Mid May 2009, the industry continues to see hardware sales drop year over year. During the May 24, 2008 week, the Wii Fit launch accompanied a huge shipment of Wiis. As a result, the Wii was down nearly 70% year over year on Wii Fit week, despite the Punch Out/ EA Sports Active lift over the previous week.

Top Selling Software for the Two Weeks Ending May 23, 2009

May 16

May 23

Notes:

-     Seven games have sold over 1m units in the Americas.

-     Punch Out, despite topping 100,000 units in its first week is a bit of a flop relative to expectations as sales were not tremendously higher than preorders as is usually the case with highly in-demand titles. Still, it’s difficult to call any title likely to easily top 1m units a flop in absolute terms.

-    UFC 2009 Undisputed was the top selling title of the week, managing to sell over 300,000 units across Xbox 360 and PS3.

-     Bionic Commando debuted to sales of less than 60,000 units across Xbox 360 and PS3. It should eventually top 200,000 in the Americas.

-     In the week ending May 16, 2009 only two games (excluding Wii Sports) sold over 50,000 units in the Americas. The following week, six games did.

-     Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS has now topped 500,000 worldwide.

-     The portable software market has just about returned to seasonal levels in the wake of the DSi launch. During DSi launch week, 32 games sold over 10,000 units for the DS. For the week ending May 23, only 12 did.

-      Wii Sports is now in over 45 million homes worldwide.

-      A total of 104 games sold over 5,000 units for the week ending May 16. The following week, 125 games sold over 5,000 units.

-     Charting Million Sellers in the top 200 for the week ending May 23: Wii – 15, Xbox 360 – 17, PS3 – 6.

-    To date, 49,286,972 Wiis, Xbox 360s, and PS3s have been sold in the Americas. Of those machines sold, about 47.3% are Wiis, about 35.3% are Xbox 360s, and about 17.5% are PS3s.  

Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com

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Pyramid Head (on 01 June 2009)

^^^

not surprised considering i just got EA Active

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Cueil (on 30 May 2009)

Wii doesnt' need another dominating year... it's time for PS360 to make inroads into their market share. That's how I feel anyway

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arsenal009 (on 29 May 2009)

I like the picture with all 3 flags in one :D

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Ail (on 28 May 2009)

a 30% boost for 1 week is quite a bit far from the 100% boost needed.
I mean thanks to that boost this week Wii sales are only going to be down 50% YoY compared to the same week in 2008.

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TheSource (on 28 May 2009)

Nope Ail, he said in the Summer and Fall they'd exceed 2008 levels after Wii Sports Resort and other titles release to (direct quote) "drive the market".

Wii Sports Resort and whatever else is in store should be a lot bigger than Punch Out and EA Active, and those two gave Wii a 33% spike this week. Iwata could be wrong, but you jump at every opportunity to blast that 26m prediction, and your gonna have to wait almost another year to be proven right or wrong.

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Dark Chaos (on 28 May 2009)

Why is there two Resident Evil 5s is 360s top ten?

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jv103 (on 28 May 2009)

Did anyone actually believe that punchout would be like brawl or mario kart? I never understood the big deal with punch out. Sure it was fantastic when I was a kid - but to pay $50 bucks for a remake with a whole 4 new characters seems a little absurd. Maybe I'm somehow missing the point.

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bardicverse (on 28 May 2009)

Silly people and their "flop" labeling after 1 week of sales. They just don't get it, do they?

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alvaroaze (on 28 May 2009)

@ECC:
its all about the expectation. almost everyone expected punchout to sell a lot more than UFC. thats why PO is a flop and UFC is a sucess.

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Kai Master (on 28 May 2009)

Sad for PO!

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Ail (on 28 May 2009)

Wasn't Iwata's expectations that Wii sales would be bellow 2008 level until end of May and then they would return to that level ?
If so it looks to me like he was dead wrong and Nintendo isn't better at predicting sales of its system than most analysts...

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Toddifer (on 28 May 2009)

I was a bit surprised to see Punch-Out!'s numbers as well (thought they were a tad low), but I'm sure it'll carry on for a while...I also thought it was worth pointing out that six of the top ten games on the Wii are 3rd-party titles, which I think is fairly significant.

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outlawauron (on 27 May 2009)

What do you think how the rise in Valkyria sales, TheSource?

How long do you think it'll last?

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Sapphire (on 27 May 2009)

Go PunchOut the game is really good

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YusukeUnlimited (on 27 May 2009)

I remember when WiiMusic first came out and everyone was calling it a flop too. Give Punchout sometime and it'll perform.

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TheSource (on 27 May 2009)

It isn't a flop in absolute terms, but it isn't going to get over 1m for a while yet, and we had expected a few hundred thousand week one.

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ECC (on 27 May 2009)

how is punchout a flop?

if punchout is a flop than so is UFC. because its on 2 consoles and only sold 300,000?

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JPL78 (on 27 May 2009)

I'm glad Sacred 2 did as well as it did, it deserves much better but I'm glad to see it getting some love at least.

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Bobbuffalo (on 27 May 2009)

Punchout is in 2d place and you call him a flop? it sold 100k in a week! That's pretty much a lot!

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Daileon (on 27 May 2009)

Punch-Out =(

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MANUELF (on 27 May 2009)

Anyone else find surprising to see 4 fitness titles in the Wii top 10?

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