Big Three Shipment Update Through September 2010 - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 31 October 2010 / 8,429 Views
Shipment figures from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft earnings reports covering the three months ending September 2010 have arrived. It was an interesting quarter - a presumed Microsoft win was snatched away in September by strong PS3 sales (and thus shipments to Europe / EMEAA) on the Move launch. Nintendo shipped fewer than expected Wiis as it allows inventory levels to drop in preperation for another big Christmas when providing deep levels of inventory goes much farther. Wii game shipments were strong. DS and PS3 software shipments were strong for the quarter.
Overall, the video game industry appears to be at a big transition point.In the six years since October 2004, software shipments for Sony's systems and Nintendo's systems have totalled nearly identical levels. DS software shipments reached 773m, Wii software reached 610m units, and GBA +GC software shipments reached another 200m + units of software in that period. For Sony, PS3 software shipments reached 350m units, PSP software shipments reached 272m, and PS2 software shipments reached about 850m units. Add it all up, and software shipments for Nintendo systems reached 1.6b+ units over the last six years, while software shipments for Sony systems reached almost 1.5b units. Roughly speaking, Nintendo and Sony have had software shipments deadlocked at 250m games shipped per manufacturer's platforms per year. With the 3DS coming, and Wii / DS likely to decline pretty gradually compared to GC / GBA, and a bit slower than PS3 / PSP there is the possibility that over the next six years Nintendo's software share will grow further. Remember, even getting to parity with Sony platforms was pretty big deal for Nintendo given the previous position of its platforms - in the six years ending September 2004, software shipments for Nintendo platforms were about 650m units while software shipments for Sony platforms were 1.2b units.
Should 3DS flop, PSP2 explode, or Wii / DS go from a 280m to a 0m market in two to three years rather than five to seven years, the opposite outcome might occur as well. Either way, the future is likely being determined by the moves Sony and Nintendo make right now. My inclination is Nintendo's share will grow further as Sony has never had the remnants of two huge markets to lean on in a transition period - the Wii / DS software market is still bigger than the PS2 software market at its peak, and Sony did not launch PS3 until two fiscal years after the PS2 market peaked. PS3 and PSP in contrast to the 280m Wii / DS market in this fiscal year when 3DS launches will likely total less than 160m-170m units as a combined market when PSP2 is introduced.
With all of that in mind, here is how the video game industry stands with the September 2010 shipment results:
July-Sept HW LTD HW July-Sept SW LTD SW LTD SW / HW
PS2 1.5m 147.6m 5.6m 1521.8m 10.31
DS 3.54m 135.58m 32.41m 773.34m 5.70
Wii 1.93m 75.90m 37.04m 610.04m 8.04
PSP 1.5m 64.2m 11m 271.2m 4.22
X360 2.8m 44.5m N/A N/A N/A
PS3 3.50m 41.62m 35.3m 350.6m 8.42
At the moment, DS is the only active software market within 900 million units of the PS2 software market total. DS is also the only active platform besides PS2 with a 100m plus base, although Wii isn't too far off now. The race to 50m units of HD hardware should be won by Microsoft this generation, although Sony has made a good race of it given the launch of PS3 occured a year or more after the launch of X360 in every major gaming market. Both X360 and PS3 are very likely to top 60m units now - even if 2011 showed a big decline if one system was to decisively win the HD motion war. Realistically speaking 65m units is the lowest PS3 or X360 can sell now, and it would be an upset for the systems to stop at figures that low. If we conservatively put X360 shipments at 50.5m through December 2010 and PS3 shipments at 48m through December 2010, and each device declined to 10m in 2011, and then 7m in 2012, 4m in 2013, 2m in 2014, and so on, both would reach 70-75m units or so. For Wii, if we put shipments at 85m through December steady declines to 15m in 2011, 11m in 2012, 6m in 2013, 3m in 2014, and so on would put Wii right at 125m units lifetime. Price cuts, successor systems and the impact of Move / Kinect will determine the fates of the systems over the long term, but its pretty clear each system will reach wide audiences.
Over the history of video games, the biggest hardware bases are the following systems. Figures through September 2010).
Next quarter, the Wii should overtake the idle GBA (82m shipped) to become the fifth most successful hardware-line of all time. X360 should also overtake the idle SNES (49m shipped) next quarter to become the ninth most successful system ever. PS3 will probably still be a bit behind SNES after the next quarter, with shipments of 48m or so. In the March 2011 quarter PS3 will likely overtake SNES. DS should also overtake PS2 sometime in 2011. When exactly is a bit hard to tell, as PS2 shipments will reach nearly 150m units this December, while DS will be at 144m or so. By March 2011, PS2 may hit 151m and DS about 147m. If Sony discontinues the PS2, DS will likely catch up by September 2011 (152m to 151m) - otherwise it will take until December 2011 when DS should have one last big Christmas season (158m to 155m or something).
DS is slowly but surely catching up to PS1 software shipments as well, if we look at the biggest ecosystems ever for software.
DS software shipments will top 810m units next quarter - putting it within 150m units of PS1 - with DS software still set to sell in significant qualities even in the wake of the 3DS. Still with DS software seeing steady deterioration it may take two to three more years before DS software catches and overtakes PS1. With declines to 85m in FY 3/2012 from 110m in FY 3/2011, and then 55m in FY 2013, DS software would catch PS1 software in March 2013. The size gap between the Wii and DS software markets is slowly shrinking as well, with Wii only 160m units behind DS despite launching two years later - that is down from 200m units behind through December 2008. By the end of December, the figures should be more like 130m apart, as DS will be at about 810m units for software while Wii will be near 680m units. PS3 is slowly moving up the chart as well, and should overtake SNES / GBA for software shipments next quarter. X360 shipments are estimated, but the system will likely over take NES and GB software shipments sometime in 2011. PSP software will likely never crack the top ten - as the system is 80m units behind PS3 even though the PSP base is 50% larger than the PS3 base.
At least some publishers should continue to support each of the current five systems for a couple more years yet. Generally speaking, the few record software volumes that are being set by publishers on a given platform in 2010 are those strong on Wii in the West, PS3 in Europe, X360 worldwide, PSP in Japan in 2010. Ubisoft for instance is set to sell 12m or more Wii games up 20%+ from its highest level on the system. Nonetheless, most publishers are in decline now across all systems - even PS3 / X360 are likely to see down years in units for giants like EA and Activision. Once the big guns like EA and Activision begin to move on (these two alone are 1/3 of the HD software market - 230m out of 700m tracked units roughly), software and hardware sales will begin to fall. Moreover, most regions are now correcting back to three-four relevant platforms, rather than supporting the five to six seen in 2008. In Japan, the four platforms are DS, PSP, Wii, and PS3 in terms of size - with DS / PSP, PS3, Wii probably the order of preference for third parties. In Europe, the platforms are Wii / PS3, X360, DS - with PSP still getting occasional big products and probably PS3, Wii, X360, DS by third party preference. In the USA, it is Wii, X360, DS, PS3 for market size, with third party perference likely 'HD', Wii, DS, or X360, Wii, PS3, DS, PSP when developing exclusives.
Regionally, Wii remains an absolute beast compared to previous Nintendo platforms in the Americas. Nintendo and third party publishers have shipped over 334m games to the Americas through September 2010 - a period of 47 months. PS2 production shipments - which is not games shipped to retailers but rather games made - were 311m units to the Americas in 48 months. The Wii Sports Resort bundle has only existed for about 2m of the 36m shipped Wiis to the Americas as well. Thus the Wii market is 296m non-bundled games to date - very similar to PS2 given the software production shipment figure would have to be scaled down to be comparable to Wii shipment figure, and given that PS2 hardware occassionally had bundles with successful titles as well. Figures for Europe / Others also appear comparable - 221m games shipped for Wii through September 2010, and 213m production shipment units of software for PS2 through September 2004. Japan is really the only difference - PS2 software production shipments to Japan were 120m or so through 47 months - while Wii shipments are less than half that. Thus Wii is trending slightly below PS2 as a software market overall, but ahead of PS1 which was nearly a billion-unit market.
The American market in particular appears to have a strong affinity for Wii games. Nintendo's GC had very few users and thus those who owned GC tended to buy almost 11 games in the Americas - but the Wii is now rapidly approaching that level with a much larger base. The same was true to a lesser extent in Others, and Wii is also nearly at the GC attach rate in that region too.
As you can see from the chart above, Wii is trending for DS hardware figures (35.91 / 47 mos = 760,000 / month, 49.28m / 71 mos = 694,000 / month) but with GC attach rates. If Wii were trending like NES, which has a very similar user base to Wii in the Americas at the moment, software shipments would be perhaps 200m to date - not 60% larger at 334m. With Wii likely to reach 50m and a 10+ attach rate, it is going to take years for the Wii software to completely die off in the Americas. GC reached its 10.7 attach rate in six years - meaning the average GC owner bought 1.8 games for six years. For Wii, the 9.3 attach rate happened in four years - 2.3 games per year. Thus over six years, it might not be completely unreasonable to expect as many 14 games (2.32 * 6) per user (particularly since most new users, probably a third of the overall, eventual Wii audience will get two games bundled) - although I'd wager the rate ends up at 9.5 - 11.5 over six years as older and incoming users buy fewer games late in the cycle.
In Others / EMEAA, the GC purchasing rate for the average user was 1.48 games for six years - while for Wii to date it is 1.9 games for four years. Wii is penetrating Others at a far slower clip than DS, so the prospects for Wii software aren't quite as bright here. Nonetheless, on a monthly basis Wii is selling 75% as fast as DS...and it has an attach rate 50% higher. The Wii attach rate is likely heading for 8-10 in EMEAA lifetime, and so Nintendo should have its first 300m console market in this region fairly soon.
In Japan Wii has attach rate problems. My impression is Wii is used lightly over extensively long periods of time in Japan -so the attach rate consistently increases but it is very slow. With an attach rate of seven or eight, the Wii software market would be closer to 75m-85m units in Japan but unlike in the West, there are not many 'modest' sized Wii games in Japan - almost all titles are huge (13 games over 1m - Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Brawl, WSR, WF+, Galaxy, Mario Party 8, Animal Crossing, NSMB Wii, Wii Party, Monster Hunter 3) or small while the West has tons of Wii games which sell 250,000 to 1,000,000 units lifetime. DS is almost the opposite - some huge hits because of the base, tons of modest hits because of developer support, and plenty of content that flops. In any case, the DS is finally approaching SNES and NES levels of software in Japan, despite a much lower attach rate. DS will finally top SNES software in the next December or March quarter - a feat N64, GBA, GC, and Wii all failed or will fail to accomplish since 1996. The 226m software figure for NES may eventually fall to DS too - but not before 2012 or so. If DS doesn't do it though, that record could easily hold for another five to ten years.
Given the attach rate advantages Wii has over DS, at least in the West, Wii should reach 800m units of software much faster than DS did - probably at fewer than 100m consoles shipped. Visually and mathematically, it is pretty clear Wii will be much bigger for software than DS, as DS is a 583m software market in the West in about six years on 104m systems, while Wii is a 556m software market in the West in about four years on 65m systems. Essentially, on 65% of the western base and in 67% of the time the Western Wii software market is already nearly equal to the Western DS software market in lifetime figures.
With a really big December quarter, it isn't out of the question that Wii software in the western markets will overtake DS software in the western markets despite the huge install base and time advantages DS has built up over the years. Obviously this is portables vs. consoles and consoles have higher attach rates. Nonetheless, the sheer trajectory of the Wii software market in the West assures western developers won't be able to ignore it for years, even if they want to. Japanese developers without western content on the other hand by and large can ignore Wii to a great extent. The reason I say this is, comparatively speaking, the Wii software market in the west now totals 555m units in under four years - the entire PS3 market is 350m units - and 40m units of that is Japan, and the X360 launched a year earlier than Wii to get those figures to where they are. X360 software figures are similar to PS3, save for an even weaker presence in Japan. Since Nintendo has 45% of the Wii market, the comparison is still roughly even between HD and Wii software in the West, as third parties have had a 500m ish HD software market with double the development costs of a 250m Wii software market to date. When it comes to sequels and new games - the publishers surely know that to date roughly the same number of HD and Wii games have profited in the West. Japan in contrast, as a Wii software market is about 1/10 the size of the West, and probably 1/15 the size for third parties.
Broadening back to hardware shipments, there have been alot of notable changes in 2010. Some are permanent - like Wii falling off the DS pace - and some may or not be. In an aligned launch, here is how Wii, DS, PS3 and X360 look through September 2010:
Nothing is going to touch DS this generation in terms of hardware shipments. Wii is now nearly 10m units of the DS pace. Also worth noting is that PS3 has topped 40m units about six months faster than X360, in quarter 18 rather than quarter 20. Wii topped 40m in nine quarters for comparison, while DS did it in ten quarters. PS3 is actually 9m units ahead of where X360 was over the same period of months from launch - but X360 shipments over the last year have been strong - preventing PS3 from catching up quickly.
Switching from aligned launches to 'real' time we can see just how much head-way PS3 has made on the X360 1-year lead. Unless Kinect is huge, or Microsoft does something drastic, there is no reason to believe that the PS3 won't catch X360 by the end of 2011. With a price cut to $250, PS3 may catch X360 in 2011 even if Kinect does perform pretty well. Microsoft somewhat imfamously said "first to 10m wins" so it will be quite amusing if X360 does fall to third in 2011.
Looking at 12-month sequences for hardware shipments begginning with the 12 months to September 2005 and moving through the 12 months to September 2010, we can see that Wii, DS, and PSP are well past their peaks. X360 is at the level of its peak, somewhat artificially, thanks to the Slim, and PS3 is right where PSP was when it peaked. PSP then declined pretty rapidly, from 16m in the year to September 2008, to 8.3m in the year to September 2010. None of it bodes well for 2011.
PS3 shipments reached 14.6m units for the year ending September 2010 - a record rate for PS3 and about 60-70% of peak PS1 and PS2 shipment figures. Over the same time frame, Wii shipments fell to below 20m units in a year (19.8m) for the first time since the year to March 2008. PS3 and X360 look like they will peak this quarter - PS3 growth has finally slowed - you can see the line flattening above. Sony will need a 6.5m quarter over Oct-Dec 2010 to stay at 14.6m over the preceeding 12 months. Microsoft in contrast only needs a 5.5m quarter to hit an all-time record for X360 shipments in a 12 month period.
It is also worth noting hardware shipments over the past nine months (Jan-Sept 2010). Without the 2009 shopping season, Wii and PS3 are remarkably close in recent months. Obviously that favors Wii, just as two cars driving at the same speed when one has a three mile lead with one mile to go in the race favors the car ahead. That said, it is still a big change from earlier in the generation and shows how far Wii has slowed and how far PS3 has come. Figures are worldwide shipments.
System Jan-Sep 10 Jan-Sep 09 Jan-Sep 08 Jan-Sep 07
Wii 8.45m 11.18m 14.42m 9.98m
PS3 8.10m 5.91m 6.24m 3.88m
X360 5.80m 5.00m 4.80m 3.00m
DS 10.45m 17.26m 19.54m 18.03m
PSP 4.10m 6.42m 10.32m 6.31m
This is likely the closest Wii and PS3 will be over January to September, as next year PS3 will either continue to accelerate and beat Wii by a small bit, or it and Wii will both slow, with the slow down sharper for PS3 as systems with lower peaks decline faster than systems with higher peaks (see DS vs. PSP its -30% vs. -50% two years after the peaks).
Looking at this generation on a quarterly basis, Wii, DS and PSP have definitely lost their non-holiday month footing. The question is to what degree Wii and DS recover over the December quarter. Wii has shown amazing seasonality recently - jumping from a 2.2m June 2009 quarter to 11.3m in the December 2009 quarter. Some of that was price cut drive (I'd wager +40% given September 2010 shipments), and some of it was NSMB Wii (500k?), but alot of it was simply seasonality. For X360 and PS3 2m-ish September quarters have resulted in 5m-7m December quarters, but since Wii has stronger hardware pushing exclusives usually, that is really the Wii baseline for the December quarter, especially since Wii seems to have stronger seasonality as well.
X360, PSP and PS3 continue to track in a remarakbly similar manner. Wii tracks now like it is a bridge between the HD consoles and the DS audiences - leading to quiet periods when there aren't big software pushes and then large spikes when strong software pushes AND seasonality kick in at once. What is interesting about the image above is that pushes for PS3 / PSP / X360 tend to be introduced at the same time from launch. As an example, X360 got the Slim when PSP got the Go in terms of timing from launch. Move and the PS3 Slim have coincided with similar PSP model-refreshes and bundles in various markets when timing is aligned from launch. The point is PS3, X360 and PSP appear to be have similar forces driving them, and so if Wii is to start trending more and more like those three systems, all be it with better holidays, Nintendo will probably still get alot of life out of Wii from refreshes. Not surprisingly, Wii has new bundles (25th Mario Birthday, WSR + WS) to rekindle interest. Going forward, Nintendo will probably get more aggressive with minor refreshes and occasional big pushes (price cuts) as Wii sells at levels more typical of the X360 and PS3 peak years. DS has ridden similar refreshes for years - with DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL and special bundles continuing to push interest in the platform by making it feel new again.
Overall, this generation isn't over just yet, but it looks like we're on the down side for most big players after Christmas.
Keep checking Vgchartz - November should be a fun month with COD, DKC, Kinect, retailer deals, Black Friday, more publisher reports and all kinds of other nonsense. Have a frighteningly blissful Halloween.
Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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Microsoft is doing good. The fact that they took more market shares from Sony, then they did with the original XBox speaks volumn. Selling over 1 million units in Japan didn't hurt either. The will need to sell over 3x's that much next generation. I had predicted that the PS3 may pass the 360 in 2011 or early 2012. It's going to all depend on what Kinect does and what Microsoft shows for E3. Also will depend on if Microsoft acquires some big names companies. Getting an EA, Activision, SquareEnix or Capcom under their umbrella would be huge. Getting RARE and Lionhead was nice, buy they need a couple more big name developers to really get the 360 moving. They need to split RARE into 2 development groups. Once for Kinect games and the other for RARE exclusives like KI3, Perfect Dark Zero 2 and Conkers 3. If they can persuade SEGA to finish Shenmue 3 that would help as well.
So Nintendo will own 51% of Apple's share in 2018.. And 40% of all money worldwide in 2025... Just becurse they had some important VR patents...
(Nice reading)
like it's games the ps3 just seems to keep on rolling like a tank not very fast but moving unstoppably non the less
All the companies profited this quarter though in the gaming divisions though, so I didn't mention it. Last quarter all three divisions lost money.
Nintendo still had a half year loss, but Q1 loss was -$282m, and Q1 + Q2 loss totaled - $30m or so, thus Q2 was $250m in profit roughly speaking.
Surely I'll get flamed for this, but one thing that should not be ignored in all of this are the P&L's that are being generated for companies because of their gaming sector.
But again, fuzzy math even makes that hard to gather as Microsoft and Sony have mixed their gaming P&L's with other products so its hard to tell if the 360 or PS3/PS2/PSP are helping or hurting the bottom lines.
Are profits important? These are publicly traded companies, so YES they are VERY important.
XBOX360 = WIN for us gamers and MS. I cant believe how much sales grown from the original XBOX.
PS2 software is like the Titanic (the movie) of console software sales. I wonder if any system will go all Avatar on its ass one day. To do it I think it would need to take a console that was as dominant as PS2 in its day. With 3 solidly performing players in the console space I don't see it happening. 3DS could be to DS as PS2 was to PS1. If it captures the attention of the global market, from a very solid DS base it could be the first gaming console to crack 200 million.
Still I don't like comparing handheld sales directly with home consoles. They are different beasts.
I think PS3's peak 12 month shipment time frame will be April 2010-March 2011. Or a small outside chance of July 2010-June 2011 if there's a price cut in Q2 next year. Sony haven't changed their 15 million projection and they're 9.1 million shy of that target. Last year they shipped 8.7 in the same time frame.
@ElGranCabeza
I just can't see Kinect making that big an impact. Personally I know 2 ppl that want it. One is a fratboy who will buy it at launch. The other is a pregnant mother who wants to wait until better games are out and a price drop. Most of my 360-owning friends seem to think the whole thing is crap. "Soccer moms" and families I know already have a Wii and see no reason for a 360. Those ppl (myself included) are considering a PS3, tho, so they can upgrade to BluRay.
On a side note, I still wonder what the 360 numbers would look like if you took out the units sold to hardcore fans that bought more than one to keep replacing their red ringing systems?
I was going to ask about the 10+ million difference in PS2 sales/shipments as well.
It's too big a margin to leave hanging.
So, Nintendo... ISN'T d0med?
Also, I think X360 will be the big winner with shipping this Holiday, Kinect will do wonders.
I said this on your other article, but maybe you didn't see it, your PSP number is off. It's actually 60.2 million + 1.4 + 1.2 + 1.5 = 64.3 million
So this pretty much confirms that the PS2 is undertracked? VGChartz has it at 137,2 million while it shipped 147,6 million? So that's 10,4 million PS2's on shelves!?
LOL!
after 2 days 360 fans still refusing to belive the adjustments.
OT: Can't wait to see how things turn out next quarter!
xbox 360 iz teh doomzed
when ps3 wil reach 200 or even 250dollar sales will explode...
little bit same with x360 but there is a units that only cost 200dollar anyway soo the diffrence wil be huge
wii is already incredible cheap i cant seem tyo figure out why wii will al of a suddon sale a shitload when 50dollar pricecut wel be anounced
Some funny business going on here pertaining to Sony. July-September, what game or games came out or caught fire to boost their July-September '10 SW to 35.3 million? Could Sony be including pre-orders for Gran Turismo 5 in this 35.3 million? If so, that is scandalous just as much as when they had Sony managers saying, "We sold 1.5 million Move controllers." Yes, you SHIPPED them to retailers, but it will be a few months before you know the retailers sold them.
Very good read keep up the great work!
