USA Retail Sales Preview - September 2009

by Brett Walton, posted on 11 October 2009 / 5,896 Views

The holiday season begins! VGChartz estimates total monthly revenue for September 2009 to be up 3% compared to September 2008, the first year-on-year increase since February. Whilst software sales are up around 16%, hardware sales are down 15% - mainly due to decreases in average selling price from last year.

Monthly highlights:

  • 25 titles have sold over 100,000 units
  • Total sales for the top ten titles comes in at around 4.5m units
  • Halo 3: ODST dominated software sales with 1.75m units sold
  • Beatles: Rock Band sold 900,000 units combined across Wii, Xbox360 and PS3
  • Guitar Hero 5 sold 800,000 units combined across Wii, Xbox360, PS3 and PS2

VGChartz expects the top 30 software for September to be:

1 Halo 3: ODST   X360   Microsoft         1,740,972
2 Wii Sports Resort  Wii  Nintendo          526,618
3 The Beatles: Rock Band Wii  MTV Games          365,665
4 The Beatles: Rock Band X360  MTV Games          344,446
5 Guitar Hero 5  X360  Activision-Blizzard         279,957
6 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2  X360  Activision-Blizzard         279,105
7 Batman: Arkham Asylum  PS3  Square Enix          260,114
8 Madden NFL 10  X360  Electronic Arts          245,837
9 Batman: Arkham Asylum  X360  Square Enix          240,614
10 Guitar Hero 5  Wii  Activision-Blizzard         234,378
11 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days  DS  Square Enix          232,033
12 Wii Fit  Wii  Nintendo          214,680
13 Madden NFL 10  PS3  Electronic Arts          200,439
14 Guitar Hero 5  PS3  Activision-Blizzard         193,374
15 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2  PS3  Activision-Blizzard         190,584
16 The Beatles: Rock Band PS3  MTV Games          188,334
17 Mario & Luigi 3: Bowser's Inside Story DS  Nintendo          186,225
18 Mario Kart Wii  Wii  Nintendo          140,899
19 Scribblenauts  DS  Warner Bros. Interactive          140,585
20 Need for Speed: Shift  X360  Electronic Arts          139,052
21 Dissidia: Final Fantasy  PSP  Square Enix          119,201
22 Need for Speed: Shift  PS3  Electronic Arts          115,053
23 NHL 10  X360  Electronic Arts          111,309
24 DiRT 2  X360  Codemasters          108,525
25 Guitar Hero 5  PS2  Activision-Blizzard         100,302
26 Madden NFL 10  PS2  Electronic Arts            95,737
27 Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box DS  Nintendo            93,186
28 Halo 3  X360  Microsoft            90,703
29 DiRT 2  PS3  Codemasters            84,816
30 Section 8  X360  SouthPeak Interactive            83,526

Moving on to hardware, PS3 saw the largest increases both month-on-month and year-on-year following the launch of PS3 slim. All hardware is up vs August by virtue of 5 weeks vs 4 and also various price cuts and new model launches. Despite this, all formats but PS3 and DS are down year-on-year (and even DS is only up 2%) - a sign that this is still tough times.


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21 Comments

Homeroids
Homeroids (on 19 October 2009)

Official figures from NPD: U.S. Hardware Sales, September 2009: 1. Nintendo DS 524.2K 2. PlayStation 3 491.8K 3. Wii 462.8K 4. Xbox 360 352.6K 5. PSP 190.4K 6. PlayStation 2 146.0K

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NicholasCage
NicholasCage (on 19 October 2009)

They got the 360 right on the money lol.

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LatinLegacy
LatinLegacy (on 19 October 2009)

@ Kai Master - Ummm what......? I won't waste to much of your time but I can list quite a few consoles that were far worse. Neo Geo Atari Jaguar Turbo Grafx 16 Sega CD Sega 32 X Sega Saturn I won't count the Wii since that price drop occurred in late September. The chart above pretty much shows that it did increase sales of the Xbox 360 a decent amount. It's not as good as the PS3's but not as bad as you are trying to make it sound.

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TooPawned
TooPawned (on 16 October 2009)

only one PS3 game in top 10, ouch

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strunge
strunge (on 12 October 2009)

@Paperdiego when you beat the console that has been absolutely dominating the competition, that hardly equates to squeaking out a win, which inherently attempts to dismiss its success. the PS3 outselling the Wii is the farthest thing form dismissable. that's just plain stupid.

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crumas2
crumas2 (on 12 October 2009)

I expect Halo 3 to completely drop off the chart for October, as a copy of Halo 3 is included with the Halo 3:ODST package.

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Hyruken
Hyruken (on 12 October 2009)

Will be an interesting week. I got a feeling VGC could be overtracking PS3 by a bit. I would be very surprised to see PS3 sell more in it's price cut month then 360 did in it's price cut month by the 60k or so they have it as.

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Kai Master
Kai Master (on 12 October 2009)

I think the price cut of the 360 was the least impactful ever for a console, they managed to be down from last year! pathetic...

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point x
point x (on 11 October 2009)

Halo 3: ODST 1,740,972 wtffffffffffff,,ha ha ha ,.. who is your daddy america?

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HanzoTheRazor
HanzoTheRazor (on 11 October 2009)

lol. Didn't the 360 have a price cut, too... Nice to see PS3 on top.

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mexitalrish
mexitalrish (on 11 October 2009)

not bad. fairly decent crop from all angles

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ckmlb
ckmlb (on 11 October 2009)

Don't be so quick to claim the PS3 barely won and how the Wii did so great with a few days of sale. This is a sales preview, meaning numbers can change (up or down).

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forest-spirit
forest-spirit (on 11 October 2009)

I can see PS3 having a bigger lead in Europe and Japan.

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Paperdiego
Paperdiego (on 11 October 2009)

wow ps3 barely squeaked out a win..

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ph4nt
ph4nt (on 11 October 2009)

With how terrible Wii was supposedly doing and how fantastic the Slim was doing, I'm surprised Wii is so close to Ps3, especially with only a few days of price cut.

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Munkeh111
Munkeh111 (on 11 October 2009)

But obviously it should still win, those reasons are why it is surprisingly close

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Munkeh111
Munkeh111 (on 11 October 2009)

The Wii had a price cut too, the 360 had a Halo game

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forest-spirit
forest-spirit (on 11 October 2009)

Trolling mode ON PS3 only 34k ahead of Wii! Trolling mode OFF Anyway...great month for the PS3! DS rocks as usual.

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psrock
psrock (on 11 October 2009)

The 360 seems to always have the top game each month in America.

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darthdevidem01
darthdevidem01 (on 11 October 2009)

PLAYSTATION FTW!!!!! It feels so nice to see DS & PS3 lead this month.. in the big font bit of the article.....I wonder if we see that phrased use again..ever

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Munkeh111
Munkeh111 (on 11 October 2009)

Nice new feature, though I do feel you said "VGChartz thinks" too many times, rather than stating it as fact. Also, if in the intro it talks about total sales for games, across all platforms, could we also have a chart for combined totals, as well as individual totals (though I know that is more work). And you chart says September 09 twice, the far right column should probably say 08 Anyway, very interesting to see pretty much everything down from last year. Had the 360 had its price cut this time last year?

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