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NPD Tallies US Video Game Revenue in Jan 12', Consoles Still Dying

by Jacob Mazel, posted on 09 February 2012 / 3,841 Views

NPD has tallied US video game revenue for January 2012. The US video game industry continues to decline rather rapidly as the hardware market approaches full saturation with the current machines. Software is also declining rather rapidly, as many users pick up new games only with new hardware. Hardware and software revenue both fell nearly 40% from last January, and enormously from December - although the December to January drop is fairly typical.

NPD Revenue January 2012

The total figure for January 2012 is below January 2004, which does not bode well for the rest of the year.

Based on revenue declines, and Microsoft's press-release ('X360 sold 270,000 for 49% share') I've estimated US hardware sales for January 2012 at the following levels - down horribly in all cases, but held up a bit overall by the 3DS.

US HW: Still Rapidly Declining

You can play around with the figures a bit until more data comes in, but it's hard to imagine either Wii or PS3 below 100,000 units. January hardware sales are typically 12-18% of December hardware sales. Wii or PS3 could be at something like 160,000 though, with the other device at 120,000 based on Microsoft's statement. My hunch is the split is probably a tiny bit in favor of Wii, simply because PS3 hasn't had any substantial games released since mid-November, while Wii had Zelda in late November and Fortune Street in December.

Software sales for the month remain heavy on shooting and dancing games, the genres that are still growing as most others fall off substantially on the consoles.

Software Sales in Jan 2012

This article will be updated if more data comes in, but it certainly looks like the usual rule of the US industry is kicking in, as you approach one console per US household from a generation, everything starts to fall off a cliff. The US market now has over 90m consoles for 120m households - so it isn't too surprising to see major drops for the second month in a row (Dec hw was -25% on a unit basis).

Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com


15 Comments

menx64
menx64 (on 09 February 2012)

New consoles around the corner! My body is ready!

  • +7
LokeSTL
LokeSTL (on 10 February 2012)

Ummmm.... could you please put your cloths back on?!!

  • 0
menx64
menx64 (on 10 February 2012)

Never!

  • 0
TheSource
TheSource (on 09 February 2012)

The price breaks were still in effect in December at most retailers, and sporadically through January. What else you got? I guess the other issue is previous PS3 price cuts (and the original Wii price cut) lifted hardware for months and months, while the 2011 cuts did virtually nothing. PS3 cost $400 for half of the March 2010 year, $300 for the rest - now its $250-$300 for most bundles and sales will be flat or down. I'm not buying price cuts as a boosting element any longer. Same goes for X360 when Kinect and X360 have been continuously discounted at retail for months (and Wii too really).

  • +5
kowenicki
kowenicki (on 10 February 2012)

I agree totally. I'm happy with my total 2012 predictions of down 40-50% for Wii and 30% for PS3/360 and anyone looking at near similar sale or heaven forbid increases on the back of price cuts is fooling themselves.

  • 0
Tammi
Tammi (on 11 February 2012)

Why do people act surprised that game sales are down? We're just past Christmas, in a bad economy and the consoles are getting older. It doesn't mean consoles are dead or a thing of the past. It just means it coming closer to time for new ones!

  • +3
thismeintiel
thismeintiel (on 11 February 2012)

Probably should update the article, as we now know the Ps3 sold > 160K (3DS sales).

  • +2
thismeintiel
thismeintiel (on 11 February 2012)

Lol, just reread the article, so much for the split being in favor of the Wii because of Zelda. :-P

  • +3
bobgamez
bobgamez (on 09 February 2012)

Dang, consoles are down a lot this year. They better be getting ready for a new gen, because this one isn't lasting that much longer. Everybody is down and the only business that increased/stayed the same was Nintendo's Handhelds. That 10 year life cycle bulls*** seems rather unrealistic now doesn't it sony?

  • +1
Kai Master
Kai Master (on 10 February 2012)

It seems it's time to release next-gen in late 2012 and not 2013, isn't it ?

  • 0
Jexy
Jexy (on 10 February 2012)

If Xbox sold the most... wouldn't that make handhelds also "dying" ?

  • 0
pezus
pezus (on 10 February 2012)

No, because we have no 3DS Jan '11 sales to compare '12 sales to. 360 is down from last year, Wii is down, PS3 is down. Next generation coming up!

  • +1
Argh_College
Argh_College (on 10 February 2012)

Even Xbox numbers dont look that good... And when we are talking about USA something is wrong...

  • 0
kowenicki
kowenicki (on 10 February 2012)

If we apply the same to the UK.... there are about 23m households in the UK, total home console sales are approaching 21m. So a very similar situation.

  • 0
kowenicki
kowenicki (on 10 February 2012)

Source is correct and you have to wonder what the actual situation is in western Europe too...

  • 0
pezus
pezus (on 10 February 2012)

We know how last year was at least in W-Eu.

  • +1
TheSource
TheSource (on 09 February 2012)

Typical way its calculated is 2.5 people per home, and the US has around 310 million people.

  • 0
VGKing
VGKing (on 09 February 2012)

Are there really only 120m households in the US? Seems pretty low to me.

  • 0
happydolphin
happydolphin (on 10 February 2012)

It depends what you count as a house.

  • -1
mjk45
mjk45 (on 10 February 2012)

households are houses with people living in them so 2.5 people per average household would be equivalent to 300 mill seems about right

  • +2
BasilZero
BasilZero (on 13 February 2012)

Its not because of anticipation of new consoles (except for the Wii) and people getting tired of buying games, its because we've barely passed christmas/new years, so people are more focused on playing whatever they got, so of course sales are bad as of now, they wont be normal until March when the new big name games come out like Mass Effect 3, Street Fighter X Tekken, etc.

  • -1

Comments below voting threshold

binary solo
binary solo (on 10 February 2012)

120m households, but quite a few formerly Wii households "upgrading" to 360. Still as a total proportion of households the upgraders are not going to be very big, and they won't drive many sales. It's possible that 360 might do about 5 million in the USA this year. Wii will obviously die. PS3 perhaps 3 million. Wii U may sell about the same as 360. I guess this late in the console cycle rest of the world becomes more significant, given there's well over 120m households and so the world is further from saturation than the USA. Of course proportionally there are fewer households that can afford to buy game consoles.

  • -5
TheSource
TheSource (on 10 February 2012)

People say they are upgrading but to me that would mean long-term total consoles sales would be flat in the US and they aren't - they're shrinking too because people who bought Wii (and arguably PS2) haven't bought anything else yet. The three consoles used to do 18-20m, and the past 12-months were a bit under 16m in the US market.

  • +1
dark_gh0st_b0y
dark_gh0st_b0y (on 10 February 2012)

i don't know why, but i feelt that the extra Xbox360 sales it's getting are actually downgrades from Wii Remote to Kinect, and its mainly kids if you understand what i mean

so Microsft was smart to attract Nintendo's audience, don't tell me the 10m+ kinect users are ''mature hardcore'' as they call them

  • +1
JRock3x8
JRock3x8 (on 09 February 2012)

Look at nov dec jan together. Jan this year vs jan last year is apples and oranges. November had a monster price break on the 360 and that moved a TON of units. All it did was shift units of people who would have bought it later. This is not good analysis.

  • -5
pezus
pezus (on 10 February 2012)

That's not how it usually works.

  • +1