NPD Tallies US Game Revenue in Dec 11', Annually: Consoles Dead in Dec
by Jacob Mazel, posted on 12 January 2012 / 5,743 Views
NPD has announced December 2011 and total annual figures for the US video game market. Starting with the overall totals:
Total figures for 2011 were $17.0b, down 11% from $18.6b in 2010. Yearly hardware declined to $5.6b from $6.3b, another drop of 11%. Software fell 6%, to $8.8b from $9.4b, even with HD software growing by 9% on a revenue basis from 2010 to 2011. Given that total hardware grew by almost 30m units in 2011 to an already huge installed base across the seven video game machines, its pretty impressive that there was still a decline. The HD market is still a bit healther for software but in absolute terms the combined X360 + PS3 bases grew by roughly 35% from 2010 to 2011, and software grew by much less than that. In previous years the growth has tracked much more similarly. Accessories also fell to $2.6b from almost $3.0b in 2010, yet another 11% drop.
December saw major declines from 2010 to 2011 relative to the rest of the year:
Hardware, software, and accessories all dropped sharply from December 2010 to December 2011. On a percentage basis, the hardware drop is most concerning, given that the decline was a staggering 28% even with the 3DS coming on strongly.
Update: New estimates in lieu of Pachter claiming 6.3m units of hardware sold in December 2011, and Wii at 1.06m. Red figures are pure guesses, blue data are inferences based on known data:
Based on Microsoft's data, and Nintendo's previous press-release it looks like X360 declined to a bit over 1.7m in December 2011 from 1.86m in the previous December, PS3 declined from 1.21m, and Wii declined from 2.36m. Microsoft says it outsold Wii and / or PS3 by 2.7m units in 2011 - and so with Microsoft's figures reaching 7.3m in 2011 (up 10% from 2010), we can surmise that Nintendo sold roughly 4.55m Wiis (down massively from the 7.07m in 2010), and that Sony sold roughly 4.55m PS3s in 2011 (up almost 5% from 2010) given Microsoft cites 46% share in December console sales as well. Going by Nintendo's previously mentioned statement for December, 3DS likely sold about 1.5m units in December as well.
NPD also noted that only 3DS and DS hardware increased on a weekly basis from November to December. Since November was four weeks and December was five weeks, there were essentially three transitions from November to December. Wii (and I reckon PS2 and PSP) likely stayed flat from November to December on an average weekly basis (although we do know Wii spiked enormously for Black Friday). PS3 and X360 however fell 35,000 and 85,000 per week respectively from November to December (again due to Black Friday being enormous). 3DS and DS in contrast, grew on a weekly basis despite big Black Friday promotions in November.
Given that X360 sold 1.7m in November 2011, with Wii at 860,000 and PS3 at 900,000 in November, the December figures are massively dissapointing for all three platforms, as December is typically two times larger than November for hardware.
On another note, hardware sales were off by over 25% from the peak figures seen earlier in the generation during 2011.
2007: 29.67m (without GBA)
2008: 34.7m
2009: 34.2m
2010: 29.2m
2011: 25.8m (give or take 200,000)
Consoles no longer look to be growing either:
Despite the cheapest price points ever for Wii, X360 and PS3 in December 2011, the three systems are each trending down now. That does not bode well for 2012, especially since Wii & PS3 each had a price cut, and retail discounts. Overall console sales in 2011 fell to 16.6m from about 18.9m in 2010 - on the Wii decline, but the bad signs are there for the other consoles too. The sudden drop off isn't too surprising - we're now at 90m+ current era console penetration in the US, close to one system per American household. PS2 + Xbox + GC sales were only 70m - so even with 50, 60, or 70 percent growth from 70m, we're near the end of the cycle. PSP and DS will end up at 75m or so from 40m GBAs - so 60% growth for the consoles looks like a safe estimate.
X360 is continuing to outpace PS2 late in its life cycle - but Wii has now joined PS3 in pacing below PS2 late in its life. Lifetime to date figures for X360 are now 32.64m in 74 months, compared to 35.48m for PS2 in the same period. Wii is at 38.71m in 62 months, compared to 30.70m in that time for PS2. The PS2 reached 38.7m in 83 months - Wii is currently 21 months ahead of the PS2 pace. That figure should erode fairly quickly over the next few months though. PS2 reached 32.64m in 65 months - so X360 is currently nine months behind the PS2 pace. PS3 in contrast to the Wii and X360, is now almost 11m behind the PS3 pace through 62 months and continues to lose ground.
According to the NPD's software tracking it was a big year for shooters and dancing games (images via Industry Gamers).
Figures for December, even in a down year, are of course enormous and so plenty of games outside the top 10 did well for the month.
Looking ahead, 2012 could be a better year for hardware than 2011, if 3DS, Wii U, and Vita all perform well. Otherwise, total hardware figures should be fairly similar to 2011, with software flat or down again.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
