Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft Shipment Totals Through Dec 2009
by Jacob Mazel, posted on 04 February 2010 / 3,479 Views
Lifetime Figures
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have updated their lifetime to date software and hardware shipment figures. As of December 2009, hardware shipments stand at the following levels. Shipments for the three months ending December 2009 follow the lifetime figures.
PS2 – 142.80m (2.10m)
DS – 125.13m (11.65m)
Wii – 67.14m (11.31m)
PSP – 60.10m (4.20m)
X360 – 38.70m (5.20m)
PS3 – 33.52m (6.50m)
A grand total of 40.96m video games systems were shipped in the three months ending December 2009 – more than the lifetime figures for X360, PS3, Genesis, N64, Xbox, and GC – a clear indication that the industry is growing. The 41m figure is also an improvement over the previous December quarter, when 40.34m video game systems were shipped. By revenue though it was a difficult quarter, as PS2, Wii, PS3 and PSP (in Japan) were cheaper than they had been in the December 2008 quarter.
Even with a big DS slowdown in 2010, it now looks like the DS will top the lifetime shipments of the PS2 by the end of 2010, with both systems approaching shipments of 150m units.
The video game industry “hall of fame” so to speak includes five of the six systems still selling worldwide.
Of the six systems current still selling worldwide, five are amongst the ten top performers ever. If PS3 passes X360, or the stagnant SNES at 49.1m it too will join the list. In the most recent quarter, DS overtook GB, and Wii over took NES while PS3 moved into 11th place, ahead of the N64, Sega Genesis and Atari 2600. PSP will overtake NES next quarter and continues to raise the bar in the category of “most successful second place system”.
Software shipments were also fairly strong for the quarter (figures are for all games on a system, not just first party or third party).
PS2 ~1508.2m (11.2m)
DS - 688.29m (50.22m)
Wii – 509.66m (80.50m)
X360* ~ 315m (43m-50m?)
PS3 – 261.2m (47.6m)
PSP – 242.9m (15.0m)
*Note: Microsoft’s reported 8.8 attach rate in its earnings report. Going by Nintendo’s depiction of NPD data in the USA though, the 8.8 is clearly an NPD figure as it is the exact rate of X360 US SW/ X360 US HW. Ballmer said Xbox sw, for Xbox 1 + X360 topped 500m at CES – and Xbox was a ~210m software market, so I’ve estimated X360 at 315m games shipped worldwide through December.
Five of the six systems still selling software worldwide can be counted amongst the top software ecosystems of all time.
Much of the future of this generation should be determined by what Nintendo does to raise the attach rate in Japan. If the Wii can become the machine of choice with DS and PSP software in decline, the system should have fairly gentle software declines worldwide as Japanese publishers slowly ooze their way from portables to Wii. As it stands now though, the Wii software market in Japan still isn’t substantially bigger than the GC and N64 markets, even though it is massively larger than those markets ever were in the west.
Trends
The last quarter was a shift in some established trends, but also a correction of some changes that emerged in the September 2009 quarter. For instance, Wii more than tripled going from the September 2009 to December 2009 quarter on its price cut and big games (3.53m to 11.31m), while PS3 'only' doubled (3.2m to 6.5m) on its larger price cut and big games. Moving forward, Wii should remain 30-70% ahead of PS3 until console prices change. For the December quarter, Wii was 74% ahead of PS3, while in the previous quarter, it had only been up by 10% - this is as clear an indication of the power of price cuts as you will ever see.
PS3 continues to outperform X360 in the aligned launch comparison above. In the fourth PS3 Christmas quarter, Sony shipped 6.5m PS3s. Microsoft shipped 6.0m X360s in its fourth X360 Christmas quarter. After beginning to perform like a console rather than the DS in the previous two quarters, Wii beat the performance of the DS in its fourth Christmas quarter. DS and X360 both showed some signs of aging, dropping off 250,000 and 800,000 units respectively from the previous Christmas quarter. Moving forward, the Wii should perform at a rate between the DS and PS3 line, as Wii will not be hitting 6m in January to March 2010 as DS did in January to March 2008. By June 2010, Wii should finally fall behind the DS pace.
One thing to note about the graph above: through thirteen quarters, PS3 + X360 shipments totaled 62.02m units worldwide, while Wii shipments totaled 67.45m units worldwide. Since X360 launched a year ahead of Wii, the combined HD figure is of course higher than the Wii figure (72.2m vs. 67.45m), but without that advantage Wii would have been ahead of both machines combined by now.
Furthermore, the motion-base for Wii will be 75m+ and perhaps alot more by the time PS3 Motion + Natal debut in Fall 2010.
Overall, the industry remains on a steep path of growth.
NES Gen: 62m systems ltd (excluding Master System and other minor devices)
SNES Gen: 80m systems ltd
PS1 Gen: 144m systems ltd
PS2 Gen: 189.3m systems ltd (still growing, and its 198m+ with DC)
Wii Gen: 139.67m systems (so far)
Shipments of current generation machines should hit 180m by the end of 2010 and then surpass the PS2 generation in 2011. Even with steep declines beginning in 2011 for the current round of machines, they should be able to easily top 250m units. The PS2 generation, with Dreamcast included will get to 205m units or so. A mere 30% growth would put Wii + X360 + PS3 at nearly 270m. The only issue is, software shipments may only get to 2.5b units or so this generation, hardly enough to justify the jump in costs on PS3 and X360 given that PS2 generation software has topped 2b units.
Conclusions
Even though 2009 never lived up to 2008, the end of the year concluded with a string of massive releases. Thus, 2010 is off to a strong start. An enormous amount of blockbuster content is releasing later in 2010 as well, and more will surely be announced at GDC, DICE, E3, and the other trade shows. Despite the focus on Natal, Arc, the real focus should be on how high PS3 + X360 software gets, and how low PSP + DS software dips. When you look at the content coming, the game-purchasing rates for the systems, and the possibility of new systems, calendar year 2010, corresponding to the fiscal year ending March 2011 – is likely to be the HD software peak. With DS and PSP software in decline, a lot of innovative developers should be free to push the Wii and HD systems to their fullest potential for this year and this year only as risk for portable and console development evens out. After this year the window closes, as projects for DS2 and PSP2 will begin in earnest, while the consoles will see software declines. Risk should be at its lowest point for software companies making current generation console games in 2010.
With Sony beating Microsoft over the holiday quarter but still forced to lower its projections for software and PSP hardware, price drops are just about inevitable for 2010 as well, especially as the consoles become more and more similar to each other. Forcing Nintendo to drop Wii to $150 with a PS3 price cut would really hurt the price proposition of the PS2 and PSP for Sony, so look for Microsoft to be the company to initiate any battle as both Nintendo and Sony will be reluctant to do it on their own.
Finally, Nintendo and Sony should have no issues reaching (+/- 5%) their revised forecasts of 30m DS (probably ~29m), 20m Wiis, 13m PS3s, 10m PSPs, 7m PS2s for the year ending March 2010. The Playstation software forecast of 200m across PSP + PS2 + PS3 is about right, while the 150m forecast for DS sw looks reasonable, as does the 192m forecast for Wii sw (the 192m includes Wii Sports). The original forecasts had been 30m DS, 26m Wii, 15m PSP, 13m PS3, and 5m PS2 alongside 240m Playstation games, 220m Wii games, and 180m DS games, so both companies have had a bit of trouble predicting the video game market lately. Microsoft does not disclose its forecasts publically.
Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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