USA Retail Sales Preview for August 2010

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NPD will be releasing data regarding the performance of the USA videogame market this Thursday at 6:30 PM Eastern Time. The data covers the four weeks ending August 28, 2010. Based on VGChartz data for the same period, we expect NPD to report the following information.

August Overview

As has been the case for much of 2009, August revenues for the retail video game market in the USA are down against August 2009 figures. Scaling down VGC Americas data for the USA over the two August periods reveals that USA software sales (excluding bundles) dropped by almost 2 million units month over month. Not surprisingly, software revenues dropped off at a similar percentage. Hardware sales didn't drop off a whole lot, but revenues were down a fair share - as even with the large increase in X360 sales over August 2009, hardware revenue dropped for Wii, PS3, DS, PSP, and PS2. PS3 and Wii were flat (+/-5%) from 2009 levels in August but both systems cost less in August 2010 than in August 2009 (the price dropped to $299 for PS3 in mid-August, and the Slim arrived in volume during early September).

With all that said, VGC believes NPD will report the following revenue figures for the USA video game market in August. Figures are in millions of US dollars.

Overall revenues should be down about 5% from August 2009. Wii (price cut), PS3 (price cut, Slim), PSP, and PS2 will probably be down in September, by both revenue and units, but X360 (Halo / Slim), and DS (price cut) are likely to be up - and so hardware revenues should remain similar to August - flat or down slightly - compared to 2009. In Japan, a similar sized DS price cut (and a few big games) pushed DS hardware sales from 99,000 for the four weeks ending June 13, 2010 to 226,000 for the four weeks ending July 11, 2010. DS has since stabilized at an average of 50,000 systems sold per week in Japan in the 11 weeks after the price cut. Here in the USA, Nintendo's $50 price cut (20%) for Wii in September 2009 initially kicked Wii sales up by a factor of 2.5 fold (70k to 185k if you go by NPD figures for Sept 2009), and so the DS price cut on September 12 which is half the size by percentage and dollars should accompany a 50%-75% lift for several weeks, with a bigger spike possible in September.

Given that DS and X360 both sold about 95,000 units per week in August, a 600,000 September looks fairly likely for DS (95k * 1.6 * 3 + 160k for the first two weeks = 615k, or 123,000 per week).

Overall though, most platforms are now performing at 2009 levels or worse - and that should continue through the rest of 2010 with a couple possible exceptions (Move?, DKC: Returns?, KH PSP, and a couple other weeks).

On the other hand, software, despite a dismal performance in August should rebound nicely during October and November when major title after major title will release for Wii, PS3, and X360. There are a handfull of big titles for the portables as well. For August 2010, Madden NFL 11 and Mafia II from EA and Take Two were the major releases of the month.

August 2010 is probably the last time that titles for Wii, PS3, X360, DS, PSP, and PS2 will all show up in the top thirty. PS2 and PSP are very small software markets now in the USA now - perhaps 25m games are sold per year both systems combined.

Madden NFL 11 sold just over 1.9m units combined in August - up 2% on last year but down 18% on Madden NFL 2009 sales.

Mafia II sold nearly 200,000 units in a single week of availability in August which bodes well for September. Software continues to be propped up by major releases from 2009 and earlier. A solid ten titles released before 2010 sold at least 50,000 units on a single platform during August. That figure may increase by a fair amount in September, as some of the leggier-DS titles may climb with increased hardware sales following the DS price cut. September will probably see a number of Move titles cluster at a given value determined by its penetration (30,000 for big games if Move penetrated 100,000 homes, 50,000 if it reaches 150,000 homes, etc) as well. The question is whether Move titles will reach near the top of the monthly chart. Guitar Hero, Madden, Metroid, Carnival Games, Halo: Reach, Professor Layton 3, and Kingdom Hearts PSP will all have a shot at putting at least one sku in the top ten, and so with the big games from before 2009 still selling as well, there probably won't be much room in the top thirty for Move titles. But we'll see - it should be an interesting month for software, even though the real show doesn't begin until October.

Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com

9 Comments

Frank_kc (on 08 September 2010)

will VGC miss on ps3 numbers for 3rd month in row?

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Barozi (on 08 September 2010)

I know these are just predictions, that's why I posted em here... @reidlosdog http://www.nintendoeverything.com/49663/

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postofficebuddy (on 08 September 2010)

@Barozi Those are just predictions. Neither EEDAR or Wedbush have been too accurate the past few months. And Source, you don't have a (including bundles) next to the PS3 version of Madden.

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DirtyP2002 (on 08 September 2010)

@reidlosdog Reach wasn't released in August. I disagree with: "it should be an interesting month for software, even though the real show doesn't begin until October." How can u say this when Reach is just around the corner?

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reidlosdog (on 08 September 2010)

@Barozi Nice numbers. If I might ask, where did you get them from?

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Barozi (on 07 September 2010)

Wedbush Morgan DS – 405,000 Xbox 360 – 330,000 Wii – 275,000 PS3 – 220,000 PSP – 75,000 PS2 – 25,000 EEDAR DS – 365,000 Xbox 360 – 390,000 Wii – 240,000 PS3 – 230,000 PSP – 80,000 Pretty big differences in the Wii vs. 360 numbers this week. VGC: 120k EEDAR: 150k Wedbush Morgan: 55k Overall looks like we're good in between everything.

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reidlosdog (on 07 September 2010)

Wait, your saying that PS3 is going to have 100,000 less than 360 in August? That doesn't make sense, with the release of Reach Console bundle and all, Reach should be quite the hit for 360. with 1.5 million copies already reserved, at least 5% of that is going to be Reach, AT LEAST. %5 of 2 million is 100,000 console units sold. This doesn't make sense, some help friends?

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reidlosdog (on 07 September 2010)

No Kinect reports? The Kinect already has 3 times as much sold compared to comparable Move. Pre-orders continue a consistent rise.

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Slimebeast (on 07 September 2010)

Cool. I hope for strong agreement between VGC and NPD numbers as usual.

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