USA Retail Preview for November 2010 - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 07 December 2010 / 5,697 Views
NPD will be releasing data regarding the performance of the USA videogame market December 9 at 6:30 PM Eastern Time. The data covers the four weeks ending November 27, 2010 (October 31 -Nov 27). Based on VGChartz data for the same period, we expect NPD to report the following information.
November Overview
Tremendous software sales, Kinect, and historic hardware increases for Wii and DS hardware from October 2010 levels led to year over year growth this month. Last year, total retail video game revenue in the United States came to $2.70b. This year, it reached $2.77b - and that is with hardware revenues and sales way down from last year on the recent collapse of PSP and PS2 as relevant American platforms. PSP and PS2 combined sold 240,000 units this month, a pretty typical NON-holiday month for ONE system, rather than two combined. However, the other systems in the industry performed quite well, even with three of the remaining four showing declines against 2009.
Wii actually declined by a similar amount to Sony's older systems (200,000 vs. 250,000) but given Wii started from a higher figure, Nintendo's system dropped 16%, while Sony's two systems dropped by a combined 52%. PS3 also dropped off slightly, even with Gran Turismo 5 helping to push some hardware over Black Friday week. DS fell by 350,000 units, which is only 21% against last November, but still beat all other hardware by nearly 30%. Wii and X360 were in a dead heat for November, with Wii rising at a historic level from October, and X360 rising very strongly as well. Historically, every once in a while a portable will jump up four fold from October to November in the USA, with 2.5x to 3x the October level much more common. On the console side, at least since the PS1 launch, with a big game you'll occassionally see a system jump up 3x to 3.5x the October level in November. The Wii however has jumped up to 4.5x its October level - something we've never seen with any video game system in the USA in at least 15 years. The DS lift, as large as it is (+1,000,000, Nov = Oct x 4), is still somewhat grounded in history, GBA had similar lifts a couple of times. X360 is similar to DS - November sales are 3.3x stronger than October. That lift is excellent, but not historic. It is actually rather similar to the lift X360 saw last October to November, thanks to strong Black Friday sales and Call of Duty. As with previous years, the PSP had a rather low October to November lift, however, the system usually sees December figures 2.5x stronger than November.
Overall, hardware unit sales and hardware revenues are down around 15% from last November. Software revenues are up though. For the month, 46 non-bundled games topped 100,000 units in the United States on a single platform. Accessory sales are also up, with Kinect and Move counted as controllers.
The question mark for October 2010 is to note that while HW and SW revenues for October 2010 are confirmed at the above levels in multiple sources, as is the October 2010 total, the accessory total is sometimes listed as $185m and $144m. For November 2010, the Kinect impact is split between two categories. For the Kinect + X360 hardware bundles, the revenue goes to hardware. Existing X360 owners buying the Kinect sensor (and game) by itself in contrast are contributing their cash to the accessory total. Given this the unit drop off in hardware is slightly steeper than the revenue drop off, as the Kinect + X360 bundle raised the average selling price of X360 slightly. Software figures exclude bundled games and PC games which are in our database for the month (Wii Sports, Fallout PC, Kinect Adventures, Sports Champions) and some of the totals for partial / temporarily bundled games (Just Dance, Uncharted II, God of War III, etc).
Top November Software
As November was a huge month for software, I've included all games to sell over 100,000 units for the month in the United States below. Games which are primarily or entirely bundled are given "NR" status. Partially or temporarily bundled games are given ** after the title, to indicate that a large portion of their sales are from bundles. Finally, the pink games are those which released in November 2010, the red games are those that released in 2010, and the blue games are those that released before 2010 began.
Including the bundled games, an impressive 50 games sold over 100,000 units in the United States this month on a single platform. Amongst the top 50, there were 18 Wii games, five DS games, nine PS3 games, one PSP game, and 17 X360 games.
Activision had a game top 100,000 on a platform four times, Ubisoft, Microsoft, EA did that five times, THQ, MTV Games and WB Interactive did it twice. Nintendo had 14 games top 100,000 on a single platform, Sony had six. Bethesda, Lucas Arts, Take Two, Sega, also had titles top 100,000 for the month on a single platform. Overall, it was a very strong month for 1st party software, with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft games topping 100,000 units on a single platform 25 times. Activision and Ubisoft also had good months, with hits on all consoles. Call of Duty: Black Ops topped 6m units, and Assassin's Creed topped 1m units. The Just Dance series from Ubisoft and Goldeneye from Activision also did well on Wii though.
Older software is also finally getting phased out from the top 50, with only 11 of the top 50 games releasing before the start of 2010. In December, older software should see a greater share of the top titles, as many new titles will quickly fall off, while the games from before 2010 that are still chart-toppers are amongst the key experiences of those platforms and will not decline quickly. Nine of the older titles in the top 50 are for Nintendo platforms, and some are from 2005-2006 - remaining in the top 50 on huge legs.
Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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Ahh, my mistake.
It usually comes out at 4 PM Post Office Buddy, we just never get data until 6:30 or so. Data comes out when the stock market closes, and then is released into the wild.
Wii and 360 so close!!!
@pezus
I said more evidence. There have been numerous discussion this gen that a "system seller" is more myth than fact this gen. People have been driven more by console price cuts to purchase consoles. Even with a BF release, GT5's launch failed to push as many consoles for JUST THAT WEEK as the nearly 3 month old (at the time) PS3 redesign/price cut did.
Once it again despite the name or hype surrounded by them. Sony has failed to produce a system selling game. Something that makes people buy your hardware regardless of what region your in. Look at the 2nd week numbers of GT5 in japan. from almost 500,000 to just under 60,000. The Wii even out sold it for the week. With nothing else coming that can really change things for them. Their only hope is another price cut. Start giving those PS3 away for free. If they really care about gaining market share.
Minor update, you might want to change the article. NPD is coming out early this month at 4pm EST.
lets just all be glad the big 3 all dont do bad considering the economy :P
Black Ops on 360 is un dertracked for sure.
Mw2 did 4.2M 1st month without counting bundles i cant see this game doing any less and this time in US there were no bundles.
i pick 4.7M for Black Ops.
curious!
ds hw sales 1.346.71920 and are just 5 top ds games (over 1.484.000). wth? piracy?
But even so PS3 just drop 7%... and it's very possible a price cut in the beggining of the next year for the stocks while the new SKU comes (maybe a slimmier or move only bundle) jan or feb.
Mixed results overall, but the DS, Wii and 360 increases from October are ASTONISHING (especially the Wii). As for the PS3, the results are more evidence that price cuts (last year) push hardware MUCH more than high profile game releases (GT5).
Will be interesting to see how close this is to actual NPD results.
lol @ ps3 numbers
damn @ the 360 numbers.
Sad @ the sony 3
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You can just tell that new handhelds are in the works from these numbers. A 16% drop for the Wii is bad, but acceptable. The 21% and 45% drops for the handhelds are abysmal. Especially considering the PSP's big titles this year. And that's coming from a PSP-hater.
If it weren't for the success of Black Ops, Move, and Kinect, this year would be a downer.
I'm irritated by this.
