The Big Three Shipment Update Through December 2011
by Jacob Mazel, posted on 06 February 2012 / 3,093 Views
Shipment data for Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft has arrived through December 2011. Below you'll find a look at the major quarterly, annual, and generational trends the latest data reveals.
Quarterly Trends
The December 2011 quarter was down for both Sony and Nintendo hardware overall, despite Vita, PS3, and 3DS growth for each company compared to late 2010. Microsoft hardware shipments did increase, but overall the industry had a down quarter compared to late 2010.
Nintendo's portable hardware shipment increased in a Christmas quarter for the first time in several years. Sony's portable shipments continued to decline over Christmas, even with Vita. Total hardware in Q4 2011 was down 1.5m from Q4 2010, a bit less than 5%, with Microsoft up by 30% (+1.9m), Nintendo down by 10% (-1.7m), and Sony down by 14% (-1.7m). Compared to the overall peak in Q4 2008, Nintendo hardware is down 30%, and Sony hardware is down 20%. Microsoft is up on Q4 2008, but not enough to prevent an overall 15% hardware decline since the Q4 2008 peak. Portable hardware is on a different time scale, with the low-year in late 2010, and a rebound already well under way. Consoles will probably continue trending down in Q4 2012, even with the Wii U - more on that later.
Software shipments also decreased, although the software decrease was completely on Nintendo as software shipments on Sony platforms remained flat from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011. Vita and X360 software shipments were not provided, but it is likely that with those platforms included software declined from 265m in Q4 2010 to 235m in Q4 2011.
Based on the known figures, software declined by 16% from Q4 2010 to Q4 2011, substantially more than the hardware decline. With X360 and Vita included, the software decline was likely closer to 12% - but still far more than hardware. From the Q4 2008 peak, with X360 (and GBA) included software has declined from roughly 290m to 235m, nearly 20%. Even from Q4 2007 which is a pre-peak year, software is down 10% (260m in Q4 2007) in Q4 2011.
Going forward, Q4 2012 doesn't look particularly good for software - Vita and Wii U should be smaller than 3DS was in late 2011 as their bases will likely be well under 10m units still. 3DS should be up quite a bit, and should end up as a fairly large software platform eventually given that its holiday quarter was already roughly as large as the biggest holiday quarter for PSP ever, when the PSP had well over 20m users already, compared to 15m users for 3DS. Wii, PSP, DS, and PS2 will be down in Q4 2012 for software, with PS3 and X360 likely flat or down as hardware is now slowing (more on that below) for those platforms as purchasing rates decline.
Annual Trends
All systems had declining hardware shipments in 2011 except for the just-released 3DS and Kinect-aided X360. Nonetheless, it is pretty clear that all the systems on the market are going to attain fairly massive hardware bases.
* Note PSP hardware shipment totals are given by Sony, but figures before April 2006 are estimated.
In 2011, Nintendo shipped 15.03m 3DS, 10.33m Wii, and 6.47m DS systems, or 31.83m systems total. Sony shipped 14.1m PS3s, 7.6m PSPs, 4.5m PS2s, and 0.5m Vitas globally, or 26.7m systems total. Microsoft shipped 14.9m X360s. During 2010, Microsoft shipped 12.2m X360s. Sony shipped 14.4m PS3s, 7.7m PS3s, and 6.9m PS2s, a total of 29m systems in 2010. Nintendo shipped 19.46m DS systems in 2010 along with 17.19m Wiis for a total of 36.65m systems.
Overall, hardware declined from 77.85m systems in 2010 to 73.43m systems in 2011, down 6%. Nintendo and Sony did both see increases in portable hardware though - Nintendo shipped 19.5m portables in 2010 and 21.5m in 2011, while Sony shipped 7.7m portables in 2010 and 8.1m in 2011. It isn't hard to imagine Nintendo shipping 23-25m portables in 2012 (20m 3DS, 4m DS), with Sony shipping 12-14m portables as well (8m Vita, 5m PSP).
Lifetime to date global hardware shipments are 154.4m for PS2, 151.06m for DS, 94.97m for Wii, 75.4m for PSP, 65.8m for X360, 62.0m for PS3, and 15.03m for 3DS through December 2011.
In contrast to the portables, consoles fell to 44.83m units in 2011, down from 50.69m in 2010. Despite conventional wisdom, there is not any evidence that the decline in Wii and PS2 has helped X360 and PS3 - Wii and PS2 declined a total of 9.3m, while X360 and PS3 increased only 2.4m, and that includes a 300,000 drop for PS3. If anything, it looks like X360 and PS3 hardware have peaked, as PS3 grew only 3% in the holiday quarter on a 17% price cut in August, a continuing onslaught of major popular sequels, growing popularity for Move, and retail discounts at $200 (compared to the $250 price in August-Oct) over Christmas. X360, after a promising November, also declined in December despite continuing retail discounts for both X360 standalones and X360+Kinect bundles. Sony has essentially admitted that PS3 is no longer sensitive to price cut lifts, by lowering their PS3 forecast to 14m for the March 2012 year, from 15m before. Odds are PS3 will be down 5-25% in the March 2013 year as the US continues to favor X360, while Japan focuses on the new portables and Wii U over the aging consoles in 2012.
In addition, X360 and PS3 are each already down around 10% so far in 2012 against 2011, with retail discounts still in place so it is fairly unlikely that minor price cuts will help much in the future. Sony certainly can not afford a huge price cut for PS3, not with its fourth massive fiscal year loss in a row. Any remaining money will be focused on getting Vita off the ground as a viable platform for software.
In fact, during week four of 2012, X360 (-21%) and PS3 (-13%) were down by more than 10% against 2011. If the declines against 2011 accelerate to say, a consistent 20-30%, each platform would sell around 11m units in 2012. The declines of X360 and PS3 will be essential in determining how close each system gets to 100m - if each fell to about 11m in 2012, its hard to imagine either quite getting to 100m units. As we're unlikely to see a huge price cut from Sony and Nintendo at all, with Wii U likely to sell relatively modest numbers in 2012, it is fairly likely consoles will be flat to down 30% against 2011. Going by the very early trends, we seem to be looking at PS3 figures of 9-13m in 2012, X360 at 10-14m, Wii at 6-9m, PS2 at 2-3m, and Wii U at 3-4m - which comes to 30m - 43m.
Take the middle of that console range for 2012 (36m), with 24m Nintendo portables, and 13m Sony portables, and you have 73m systems shipped in 2012 - plus or minus 10% - just about flat on 2011.
Software shipments are also set to be massive this generation, although PSP never really took off in the way that the three consoles and DS did for software. During 2011, game shipments on Nintendo platforms were about 37m 3DS games (larger than PSP already, with 20% of the users), 110m Wii games, and 73m DS games (3DS is half as large as it declines, with 10% of the users), 220m in total. Sony game shipments were 160m PS3 games, 36m PSP games, and 9m PS2 games, about 205m in total. Microsoft doesn't provide software shipments.
In 2010, software shipments were 211m on Sony platforms, and 315m on Nintendo platforms.
* Note PSP software totals are given by Sony, but figures before April 2006 are estimated.
Through 2011, DS software shipments reached 890m, with Wii at 805m, PS3 at 568m, PSP at 324m, and 3DS at 37m. PS2 software now stands at 1536m. Sony did not provide Vita software shipments, but they were likely under 2m units.
Generational Trends
Through the end of 2011, PS3 has joined Wii in outpacing the PSP hardware pace, a system which itself is set to reach at least 80m units lifetime. X360 has also come close to catching the PSP pace, but still remains a bit behind it.
3DS, as Nintendo's Satoru Iwata had mentioned previously, has the highest base of any system ever within four quarters of launch. That said, the trajectory should fade more quickly than Wii or DS did, as a major price cut will probably not revive or prolong momentum in the platform late in its life cycle. Wii has a decent, but by no means assured, shot at overtaking the PS1 hardware figures in 2012, Nintendo would have to ship about 7.5m Wiis in 2012 to do it. DS also has an outside chance of overtaking PS2 hardware this year, particularly if Sony ships well below 1m units each quarter in 2012.
On a more quarterly focused chart we can see that in Christmas six for each platform, aligned from launch, both X360 and PS3 finally beat Wii in a holiday quarter. PSP also beat DS in a holiday quarter for the first time ever. It also looks like PSP outsold DS worldwide in a year for the first time since 2005. Microsoft also led the console market for the first time ever in 2011, as X360 outshipped PS3 by 800,000 units. Technically though, Sony shipped 18.6m consoles in 2011 (4.5m PS2s, 14.1m PS3s), while Microsoft shipped 14.9m X360s. Nintendo shipped 10.3m Wiis.
On a software basis, 3DS has joined Wii in trending above the DS pace. Whether that is sustainable for 3DS is an open question though. At the moment, DS is an 890m market, and Wii is over 115m ahead of it aligned from launch, so it does look like Wii is set to be 1b+ software market. PS3 is currently on pace to be a 770m software based on its pace compared to DS software. That said, DS software should get to around 950m units lifetime, with PS3 making significant inroads into the DS pace over the next year - so PS3 could easily end up being an 850m or 900m software market. Wii in contrast will probably fall to a bit closer to the DS pace, but still end up over 1b units lifetime. The overall trend of course is that PS2 will be a 1.55b software market with half the profitability threshold as a PS3 game, so if PS3 gets to 900m units of software lifetime, its a 650m drop off. Adjust for the profit threshold for each platform, and something like three games on PS3 will end up profitable for every 10 that were profitable on PS2. If Wii gets to 1.03b or so, it will be 800m units larger than GC as a software market, with something like a 20% increase in the number of units a game has to sell to profit.
The big question going forward is how quickly PS3 hardware slows at a time when purchasing rates have started to get fairly low. If hardware and purchasing rate declines slow, rather than decline faster in 2012, PS3 will gain rapidly on DS and fairly quickly on Wii. At 12m PS3s shipped and two games per user in 2012, PS3 is still a 150m market. At 10m PS3s shipped at 1.8 games per user in 2012 PS3 is a 130m market. Either way, PS3 is going to get pretty close to the DS software pace over the next two years.
The number to watch for Wii software is where it is in absolute terms and relative to the DS at the end of 2012. If Wii is around 900m, it should get to over 1b units of software, as Wii U will prevent a collapse of Wii software by playing its games at a time when Wii U has relatively few titles. DS software was at 840m in through March 2011, the 3DS launch quarter, and should get at least 100m units higher than that as a point of comparison. It does look like DS software shipments won't quite reach 1b units though, as the year to March 2012 should be right about 60m for a total of 900m DS games.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
