NPD Reports US Video Game Sales for the 4 weeks Ending October 31 - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 12 November 2009 / 5,203 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
More Articles
we all need a dream right Baalzamon?
@Yakuzaice
Thanks!
@ Mai
- Demon's Souls (PS3)
- Brutal Legend (360).....150k
- Fifa Soccer 10 (PS3)
- Mario and Luigi (NDS)
- WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 (360)
- Tekken 6 (PS3)
- Borderlands (PS3)........113k
- Madden NFL 10 (360)
- Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: EoS (NDS)
- Mario Kart (Wii)
Baalzamon, 360 will not be discontinued. Xbox was only discontinued so abruptly because it was built on a hardware cost royalty model (Nvidia and Intel got paid a set price per chip) that made it an unending money pit. Suffice it to say 360 is a different story and will be sold as long as consumers buy it much like Ps2. With 360, Microsoft owns the chip IP, so they can fabricate the chips anywhere, so costs can be driven down.
The wii's YTD is better than I thought... Did it outsell 2008 early this year then?
The 360 is robust as ever and its obvious why: While the other consoles rest on their Laurels and good names, Microsoft is alwys churning out AAA titles.
I think the Wii will Boom up to CLOSE 2008 levels due to lack of suppy constraints, and the PS3 will shatter 2008 levels. THe XBOX will happily meet and slightly exceed the last year.
@newbie3: Well, i'm going to wager that the ps3 will outsell the 360 when the 360 is discontinued and the ps3 continues to sell for a number of years after next gen comes out. After both consoles are to their end, the ps3 will have more us sales than the 360.
So currently Xbox 360 is 380,000 ahead of PS3 for 2009 NPD. Considering 360 looks to be winning November already, that will probably grow heading into December. So unless PS3 outsells 360 by 400k-500k in Dec (unlikely), 360 will outsell PS3 for 2009.
So 360 has outsold PS3 in NPD in 2006, 2007, 2008, and soon will be 2009. That is why PS3 has no chance to ever win in the USA over 360.
Congratz to Naughty Dog and Sony for the great Uncharted 2 performance!!! Will be interesting to see the legs of the game though.
not bad, i really wish Sony would get their Shit Together and fix the PSP's sales!
WOW that didn't take long. Guess Wii's back on top to reclaim the throne. I just feel bad for Sony; because I'm sure they were hoping to be in the #1 spot until at least the end of the year. Also what happened to Ratchet and Clank? I guess it totally bombed at retail considering how much dough Sony shelled to advertise this title!
So Wii was really overtracked, mmm
When we're going to see extended top 20 list of software sales from NPD?
@ Lafiel )
ok, then both Xbox and Wii are over estimated here. PS3 is a hit.
@ fxa5209 )
plz refer to the npd preview post for hw/sw comparisons, because the numbers you qouted from vgchartz are for all of america and not only US like the NPD numbers, so actually they are supposed to be higher !
hmm.. Wii performed 130k less than in the preview post http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=5824&mp=1 and is the most notable difference from the hw preview, while PS3 hw is almost a perfect hit
on the software side Borderlands and Fifa 10 performed much better than expected, while M&S atOWG and to a lesser degree MK Wii have been overestimated it seems
Baalzamon says:
wow, 360 can't beat ps3 even with the $100 gift card...didn't surprise me, i predicted 25k ps3 over 360, pretty darn close
nice selfown! The giftcard started in November (and btw only for a VERY short time) This is the October report. But hey, at least you tried to troll.
Wow, people are going to have to eat a lot of crow if they don't let up with this 360 can't even beat PS3 because of this excuse or that excuse considering it's (PS3) only been ahead this year since the price drop. If the positions flip again, what will you say?
I think you give to much credit to the slim source. I would say 95% of the sales(in the US) were due to the price coming down to $299, where people wanting to get a slim PS3 was a very small %. I think people could care less about the model as long as it was a PS3.
Does that Forza number seem a bit low?
Ail the point is both price cuts worked.
We are talking about an 85% boost (69k to 127k) on a 20% price cut for Wii from August to October after the ~180k week one late in NPD September, and the 25% price cut + PS3 Slim pushed PS3 from 30k to 80k - a 166% boost. Given the PS3 went from very expensive to kind of expensive while Wii went from optimally priced to cheap, you have to figure the PS3 price cut alone was worth somewhere between an 80-120% weekly rise, with the rest of it going to the slim.
baalzamon, i see u r new... and most likely trolling... but you did know that the $100 gift card for X360 was like... a few days ago? and this is data for October right?
Not surprising wii is doing so good, but you think about it...how genius, they are making tons of money by coming out with a console that has horribly outdated technology...graphics are worse than ps2...but it is fun :O
great month for 2k ... nba2k sold good and borderlands sold awesome..... happy for them with bio on the way for them things look bright....
good for ps3 and xbox selling well.....
2010 is definitely gonna be the PS2's last year, making it one of only a handful of videogame systems to last a full decade or more in production before officially being discontinued... the others were the NES, original GB/GB pocket/GB Color, and PS1. That's some pretty prestigious company to be in.
Wii dominates again. Down yoy but still dominating..So pretty much it destroys the comp but can't beat it's best year ever..Which coincidentally is the best performance for a console period.
Wii ... O_o !!!!!
The analysis is somewhat misleading.
Wii is up compared to September because the cut was at the end of that month so most of september Wii was still selling at the low level it was before the cut.
PS3 is down mostly because of the crazy sales it had the week the slim was introduced which really inflated the average for that month...
wow, 360 can't beat ps3 even with the $100 gift card...didn't surprise me, i predicted 25k ps3 over 360, pretty darn close
The big 3 tracked really well this October.....congrats.
Woo0op, wii on top
The king at the top! yeah!
typo
"In 2008, 60% of all Wiis were sold in January to December." should be "January to October"
