2011 Half Year in Review: Top Software & Hardware Trends - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 09 July 2011 / 9,388 Views
Software in H1 2011: Top Hits by Platform & Multiplatform
Software and hardware results for the first half of 2011 are now available on VGChartz. For the purposes of this article, the first half of the year is the 26 weeks ending July 2, 2011. The second quarter started April 2, 2011 and the first quarter started January 3, 2011. Keeping that in mind, the 20 games below were the best selling titles over in the first six months of 2011. Q1 sales denote what the game sold through March. LTD represented lifetime to date global sales for the game in question across all platforms. Figures at the right are presented in millions of units.
Pokemon Black / White for the original DS remained the global top seller of the year through six months, as it was through three months. Black Ops, which has sold over 25 million units now with the PC version included, has already sold over 4 million units in 2011 after selling enormously well in 2010. A couple of other trends are evident from the data as well - the dance genre continues to explode for one, as three huge dancing games (3m+ lifetime totals) are in the top 20 for the year. Microsoft's Kinect device slowed substantially in the second quarter of 2011 - of the 2.97m units of Kinect Adventures (which is bundled with all Kinects) sold in 2011, 2.24m were sold by the end of the first quarter, leaving 750,000 for the entire second quarter. Finally, it is interesting to note that X360, PSP, and 3DS all lacked exclusive, non-bundled software in the top twenty, even though the platforms are represented well (X360) or at least a bit (3DS) in the multiplatform titles that have sold well to date.
On a platform basis, for Wii, PS3, X360, DS, 3DS, and PSP, the top 20 sellers for the first half of the year were as follows, starting with the Wii.
Wii:
It is important to note that through May, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort were sold mostly through bundles, but since May, they have mostly sold seperately - so there is actually a chance for the first time since the Wii launched that Just Dance 2 or another title will outsell Wii Sports on Wii for the year. Moreover, since May, Mario Kart has been bundled with Wii in the West, and so its very likely to be the top selling game for the year. For the year, Wii has already had 10 games sell over a million units. As Zelda, Kirby, Just Dance 3, Zumba 2, Mario & Sonic are very likely to top 1 million units as well, Wii should at least 15 titles top 1 million units again in 2 011.
PS3:
PS3 had six titles top 1 million units in the first half of 2011, three of which were exclusives from Sony. The dominant publishers for the first half of 2011 on PS3 were EA & Sony, with Take Two also performing pretty well in third. Sony's Sports Champions game, which is the top Move game to date (due to bundling) sold just over 500,000 units in the first half, good for 19th place on PS3. Given the pace of Sports Champions and Move overall, no other Move titles are likely to chart in the PS3 top 20 list for 2011. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, many of the current top-20 PS3 games should be pushed out, as the major fall games start to arrive in the next quarter. As can be seen in the multiplatform chart, many titles simply sell well for a quarter and then start to die out pretty quickly in the next quarter - so it won't be too difficult replacing the bottom five to ten titles on the list above.
X360:
Through June, Microsoft's Kinect device has sold to about 20% of all X360 owners. Sure enough, a similar volume of Kinect hits are present in the top 20 - Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports, and Dance Cental or 15% of the top 20, are Kinect exclusive titles. The pace of Kinect has been interesting in 2011 though, as Microsoft had announced 8m shipped through December 2010, 10m through February 2011, and then 10.4m through March 2011. Our data suggests around 800,000 shipped in the June 2011 quarter, putting Kinect at about 11.2m vs. roughly 55-56m X360s. The question going forward is how high Kinect penetration gets. If it reaches 30-40% at some point, top 20 X360 lists should start to look dramatically different going forward. Otherwise, the next Call of Duty, Gears, and 'pre-Kinect Xbox software' should continue to dominate the platform.
DS:
The DS is still selling quite a bit of software, but given that its base is nearly 150 million units globally, it is clearly dying as a major software platform. Pokemon Black / White is in fact the only game to penetrate even 1% of the DS base in the first half of 2011. Even so, with the threshold of profitability so low on DS, and the 3DS capable of playing DS games, what remains of the DS software market should decline fairly slowly from here on out. The DS should still be roughly as large as the PSP was at its peak for a software market (40-60m) for another year to three years, but that is a function of its base more than a slate of continuing strong releases.
3DS:
Nintendo and third parties shipped just under 10 million games through March for the 3DS launch. As of the end of June 2011, just over 5 million 3DS games have sold worldwide - suggesting that no more than a few million games shipped in the quarter. With 3DS selling less than 100,000 per most weeks, software sales should remain fairly low too. As a result, even with top 3DS games starting to top 200,000 units fairly consistently over the long-haul, Nintendo is probably going to have to lower its 3DS software forecast at some point. Looking ahead, 3DS may finally have a million-selling title by the end of the next quarter, as Ocarina of Time now has to attach to less than 1/3 of 3DS hardware to reach the figure, which is about what top games can attach at in the early days of a hardware cycle. In addition to Zelda (all but certain by year end), 3DS will probably only have Super Mario & Mario Kart (if it makes it) as million sellers in 2011.
PSP:
PSP is easily the most Japanese-dominated software market in the video game industry today. So far in 2011, only one top PSP game has been released by a Western publisher. Even so, the strong Japanese support has only mattered in Japan. Globally, PSP is even worse than DS for usage rates as a dying platform - no title has even penetrated one percent of the global base (69m) in 2011. Two games, Monster Hunter and Dissidia came close - but the drop off is pretty steep from there. Selling even 200,000 copies of a game on PSP now is nearly impossible for all but about six publishers - Capcom, Konami, Sega, Namco-Bandai, Sony and Square-Enix all of whom are Japanese based. Once Vita arrives, much of the Japanese PSP audience that buys a lot of games for it annually should migrate, leading to quick PSP software declines in Japan as we've seen with DS after 3DS launched.
Hardware Trends in H1 2011
In contrast to software sales, which are generally still pretty strong for consoles if weak for portables, hardware trends in Q2 2011, and H1 2011 are pretty uniformly bad no matter how you divide them. Globally, the X360 was up for the first half of the year, unique among pre-3DS hardware, but the second quarter was down for all hardware that had released before 2010, including X360.
Even with the 3DS launch and X360 up for the first half, hardware declined by 16% over the first half of 2011. Without 3DS, hardware would have dropped 26% against the first half of 2011.
In the second quarter of 2011, the figures are actually much worse:
All hardware declined - even with 3DS, hardware dropped 22% in the quarter, compared to 16% in the first half. DS and PSP have each trended more negatively since 3DS launched as well. The relatively good news is that compared to Q2 2010, X360 only dropped off only 2% in EMEAA and the Americas - the rest of it was in Japan. Moreover, since May 15 when Nintendo cut price of Wii, the Wii has only been down 10% against its global 2010 numbers. Figures in Q3 could go either way - initially Wii, X360 (down 50% this week as it laps the Slim), PS3, DS, PSP, and PS2 will all be down again (with the size of X360 & Wii drops essentially switching places essentially on the price cut / X360 slim impact) but by the end of the quarter the trend could be less severely down if Sony and Microsoft cut price. Without price cuts though, overall hardware could be down 25% from Q3 2010.
It is also interesting to note that each region has behaved very differently in H1 2011, with three different sets of 'leading' platforms for each region.
Starting in 2009, the Americas has essentially had four main platforms - Wii, DS, X360 & PS3. That hasn't really changed in 2011, as PSP and PS2 remain in terminal decline and 3DS has a tiny base at the moment. The X360 was up overall for the first half of the year, even though Q2 2011 was down slightly. The Americas market is down overall from H1 2010, and might be down more through three quarters of the year then it is now, but will probably rebound late to about where it is now on price cuts, Vita, the first 3DS Christmas and major titles.
As with the Americas, X360 is up a bit from H1 2010. However, since X360 is weak in EMEAA outside of the UK, PS3 and Wii are still ahead quite a bit for the year. With PS3 likely to get a price cut and already ahead to date, it should be the top selling hardware in the region for the year even with the usual spike Wii will get for Christmas. EMEAA has seen the worst year to date drops of any region so far, with hardware down 22% even with 3DS, and down nearly 30% without it. The main difference between EMEAA and the Americas is that PS2 & PSP are now slowing quickly in developing markets in addition to Western Europe and Australia, adding to the decline. DS has also declined faster in EMEAA than the Americas ever since the R4-pirating device became legal is some countries.
Japan is about 1/3 the size of the USA as a gaming market, so the performance of 3DS to date has been strongest in Japan. This can also be seen by looking at the 'without 3DS' figure. Japanese hardware is down 36% without 3DS in the first half, easily more than any other region, but it also only down 5% with 3DS - the least of any region. Given all of that, the launch of Vita, the first 3DS December, along with better Wii & PS3 numbers in the second half should be enough to push Japanese hardware into gains for the year. With Japan up, and the Americas + EMEAA each down a bit, hardware globally is likely to fall in 2011 from 2010. Next year should be the start of an extended rebound though, as 3DS, Vita, and Wii U will grow and launch respectively.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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That's amazinf to see a -2.7% decline for PSP in Japan, thanks to only one game : MH3 ! I never would have thought that only one game could save a console.
Very nice article. One thing that stood out to me is saying that the 3DS will only have 3 million sellers by year end. I think with Nintendogs already over 600k and doing 20k a week, plus the fact it is a game that will sell well during the holidays, gurantees that it will be over a million before the end of the year.
I'm not really sure the fact that the Wii is only down YoY 10% since the cut is such a good thing. You would expect sales to be up YoY for a while after a cut...
You know actually with a price cut before the holydays both HD platform would probably beat last year numbers.
Microsoft should be massively concerned about this trend with the Kinect. Rather than the Kinect following the trend of the Wii (continuous demand throughout its first year) it is following a trend similar to successful 360 software (massive launch followed by a precipitous decline).
What that suggests is that the Kinect has been primarily selling to current 360 owners rather than attracting new consumers. Even worse, their hardware sales have stalled out, suggesting that the Kinect is offering little to no boost in hardware sales anymore. Without the benefit or early adopters and most 360 owners ambivalent toward the device, this could be a very long holiday for Microsoft.
Good article.
Interesting to see just how poor a state the gaming market is (sadly) in right now. numbers will only get worse from here- 360 will be down massively this second half, due to Kinect and Slim launches, and the PS3 will also be down heavily when the Move launched last year. Of course, this is assuming no price-cuts. With pricecuts, PS3 will be down YoY around 6% at the end of the year, 360 around 8% and Wii around 15% I reckon. And it will only get worse from here...
Move didn't give a huge boost to PS3 last year. It just looked that way because of the time of year that it launched. Sales naturally pick up around Late August to September. It boosted sales but only modestly compared to what you would have normally expected.
To get an idea of what you would normally expect look at previous years (2007, 2008) on the Fifa launch. Fifa is basically the kick-off to the lead up to the holidays.
good article only issue is on the Japan Chart the systems are slightly out of order
Can't you even proofread your own articles, two pics have been round the wrong way for ages now ..
Wat about PC software :O
All platforms have good software sells.
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