NPD Reports US Video Game Sales for the 4 weeks Ending October 31
by Jacob Mazel, posted on 12 November 2009 / 3,750 Views
Heading into the crucial November-December 2009 holiday, software and hardware sales remained significantly below the 2008 pace in October 2009.
For the four weeks ending October 31, 2009 NPD reported that the ten best selling titles in the United States were:
1) UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES (PS3; Oct-09) 537,000
2) WII FIT PLUS (WII; Oct-09) 441,000
3) BORDERLANDS (360; Oct-09) 418,000
4) WII SPORTS RESORT (WII; Jul-09) 314,000
5) NBA 2K10 (360; Oct-09) 311,000
6) HALO 3: ODST (360; Sep-09) 271,000
7) NBA 2K10 (PS3; Oct-09) 213,000
8) FORZA MOTORSPORT 3 (360; Oct-09) 175,000
9) KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 DAYS (NDS; Sep-09) 169,000
10) FIFA SOCCER 10 (360; Oct-09) 156,000
Despite having five of the top ten titles for the month Xbox 360 hardware sales dropped on a weekly rate from September 2009. October 2009 figures were also down from October 2008 for Xbox 360. Note that both Octobers are four week months while September was a five week month by NPD tracking. PS3 also dropped off somewhat sharply on a weekly basis from September - but it is up significantly year over year. Wii is the opposite - rising sharply on a weekly basis from September but still paling in comparison to last year. Weekly increases month over month are in blue, while year over year increases are in orange.
System October 2009 (4 weeks) October 2008 (4 weeks) September 2009 (5 weeks)
Wii 506,900 (127k/wk) 803,000 (201k/wk) 462,800 (93k/wk)
PS3 320,600 (80k/wk) 190,000 (47.5k/wk) 491,800 (98/wk)
X360 249,700 (62.5k/wk) 371,000 (93k/wk) 352,600 (70.5k/wk)
DS 457,600 (114.5k/wk) 491,000 (123k/wk) 524,200 (104.5k/wk)
PSP 174,600 (43.5k/wk) 193,000 (48.5k/wk) 190,400 (38k/wk)
PS2 117,800 (29.5k/wk) 136,000 (34k/wk) 146,000 (29k/wk)
Heading into Christmas last year, the DS rose from 491,000 in October to 1,570,000 in November to 3,040,000 in December. In 2002, the first Christmas PS2 was available at $200, the PS2 had a similar rise going from 517,000 to 1,284,000 to 2,686,000 according to my NPD sleuthing. We don't know yet if Wii is going to rise in a similar fashion. It really could do anything from 507/1000/2000 to 507/1530/3100 as far as I'm concerned. But the price cut for Wii has worked. In August, NPD had Wii weekly sales at 69,000/week. NPD September was five weeks - the last of which had a price cut. If you use that 69,000/week Wii did 180,000 or so in its price cut week. The October data shows that Wii is still at twice its pre-price cut level - 127,000 per week even though the price was only cut 20%.
PS3 has seen a similar effect although it is more difficult to parse out due to the Slim model. Still, in July PS3 was averaging 30,000 per week and now it is doing 80,000 per week. Sony's price cut was bigger by percentage and dollars than Nintendo's cut (25% and $100 vs. 20% and $50) so even with the Slim most of that increase is from the cut.
Nonetheless, with the PS3 still more than Wii and X360 the PS3 is unlikely to see as big a rise as Wii and X360 will see in November and December. This is particularly true with Black Friday coming the day before the NPD period ends in November.
Here is how the six systems are performing year to date against prior ten month performances.
System Jan-Oct 2009 Jan-Oct 2008 Jan-Oct 2007
Wii 4.52m 5.97m 3.96m
PS3 2.26m 2.44m 1.29m
X360 2.64m 2.46m 2.59m
DS 6.18m 5.34m 4.43m
PSP 1.55m 2.39m 2.20m
PS2 1.26m 1.89m 2.35m
Hardware price cuts have not been yet been able to lift Wii, PS3, and PS2 to 2008 levels through ten months. Xbox 360 is slightly above where it was last year - but probably down in revenues due to the lower pricing on 2009. PSP is down despite the PSP Go model but about a third. Wii is down 25% even with the recent 20% price cut. DS is up even though in reality the DSi is pushing the price of the system up.
In 2008, 60% of all Wiis were sold in January to October. For PS3, that figure was 69%. Microsoft only sold 52% of its systems in January-October 2008 as the price cut really manifested in November and December. DS saw a similar rate - 54% of all systems sold in 2008 were in January to October. For PSP 62% of all systems sold in 2008 were sold in January to October. Sony sold 75% of the PS2s for the year in January to October 2008.
Using these figures as guidelines, you would expect Wii to come in at 8-9m, PS3/360 to come in at 4-5m each, DS to come in at 11-12.5m, PSP to come in at 2.25m-3.00m, and PS2 to come in at 1.6m-2.0m when final figures for 2009 are available. DS will probably end up closer to 10-11m though, and Wii may be a bit higher than 9m based on the current momentum of the two systems.
Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
