USA Retail Sales Preview for June 2010 - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 09 July 2010 / 5,301 Views

NPD will be releasing data for the performance of the USA videogame market this Thursday at 6:30 PM Eastern Time. The data covers the five weeks ending July 3, 2010. Based on Vgchartz data for the same period, we expect NPD to report the following information.

Overview

As with May 2010, PS2 and portable hardware dropped off year over year in June and dragged the industry slightly negative for the month as a result. Wii, X360, and PS3 increased year over year - by 5% to 88%. The 88% increase was for the X360 which had a temporary price cut on older models to clear out stock, and an uptake in demand from the X360 Slim model that was announced during E3. Still, even with X360 way up year over year, and DS way down, it was the DS that was the top selling system for the month.

Software sales increased over May 2010 and June 2009. This can be attributed to stronger releases and better legs from older titles. Only ten games in the top 30 for June 2010 released during the month. Software price points actually dropped off from May 2010 though as retailers offered numerous discounts for games available for most systems late in the month but software sales still increased for the month. With the new music games and massive uptake in X360 purchasing, accessory sales were also up for the month. In the chart below, each June is a five week period, while May is a four week period. Figures are in millions of dollars.

Month SW HW Accessories Total $ Spent / Week

June 2010 $651.6 $326.4 $166.0 $1144.0 $228.8

June 2009 $625.8 $382.6 $158.2 $1166.6 $233.3

May 2010 $466.3 $241.5 $115.7 $823.5 $205.9

Overall, despite a small increase in software revenue, industry revenues fell 2% against June 2009.

Monthly Highlights

- Against May 2010, every system save for Wii and PS2 increased its sales on a weekly basis. Wii was up on a monthly basis but only because June 2010 had five weeks while May 2010 had four weeks. Compared to June 2009, Wii, PS3, and X360 were all up. DS, PSP, and PS2 each fell by 35% to 75% though. The chart compares NPD sales for June 2009 and May 2010 to what we expect NPD to show for June 2010. Red figures denote a drop in weekly sales rate, even if there is a monthly increase.

HW Sales for June 2010 (Est)

- Konami's Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was the biggest single-platform release of the month, and the first PSP game in 2010 to crack the top ten in the USA.

- Lego Harry Potter was a big hit for Warner Bros. this month, selling nearly 300,000 copies across Wii, PS3, X360, DS, and PSP in a single week.

- Major titles from 2009 and earlier continue to perform well. In the top ten alone, a remarkable half of the top ten hits for June 2010 were released in 2009.

With the release of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, PSP week sales increased from less than 15,000 per week to about 16,600 per week - a 12% jump. However, the system is still down nearly 50% from June 2009 levels. PS2 is down by an even greater 71%, dropping from sales of over 30,000 per week to under 9,000 per week. DS has fallen sharply too, as the DSi launch had perked up demand last Spring. Nonetheless, the system still is selling nearly 100,000 per week in the USA. X360 sales averaged 90,000 per week in June - but that isn't really indicative of any particular week. Before the clearance sale on older models (price drop) and X360 Slim, Microsoft was selling 40,000-50,000 X360s in the USA per week. Since the Slim & Clearance Sale combo, the three week average for X360 is about 120,000 X360s per week in the USA. That put the system about 20% ahead of Wii for the month, and at more than double PS3 sales. Sony's three systems combined were in fact outsold by Wii, DS and X360 this month, so it will be interesting to see how Sony spins June figures on the hardware side. PS3 is up of course over last June, but revenues are about flat since PS3 is 25% cheaper in June 2010 than in June 2009.

Top Thirty Games of June 2010 in the USA

For June, there were 11 X360 games, nine Wii games, eight PS3 games, one DS game and one PSP game in the top thirty. Take Two and Nintendo once again had strong months. EA and Activision had decent months overall in the USA, lacking new hits, but seeing many titles perform well enough to chart in the top thirty. Notably absent from the list above is Tiger Woods on Wii - the game did not crack the top thirty after performing well last year. Warner Bros., as mentioned above saw a very strong first week for Lego Harry Potter. Ubisoft, THQ, and Konami each had fairly good months with titles in the top ten. Capcom's Lost Planet 2 dropped off very quicly after its first month and did not come close to the top thirty for either PS3 or X360. It was a bad month overall for Japanese publishers, as only Nintendo, Sony, Konami and Sega had titles in the top thirty. None of the racing games released in May sold well enough in June to chart in the top thiry either, although they were not too far below the cutoff.

Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com

5 Comments

binary solo (on 12 July 2010)

I guess Harry Potter Lego will have some good legs. But I'd say an opening of 300K across 4 platforms isn't a "big hit", considering a 300K opening on a single platform in the USA is a good, but not great opening. Though maybe for Warner Bros. this sort of opening is big?

Quite a big MoM & YoY increase for PS3 there, what's the reason for that? People buying consoles in readiness for the summer holidays? Does that indicate that the 360 boost has had / will have little to no effect on PS3 sales?

DS clearly losing steam YoY, but coming off such heights means it's still looking very healthy. the XL version hasn't done much to reinvigorate sales though. 3DS is launching at exactly the right time. Sony should massively reduce the price of the PSP (can do, now that PS3 sells at a profit) and eek out another year or 18 months, pick some late adopters who will wait for a price reduction on the 3DS, but who might be interested in a giving PSP a try at the right price. No point in launching PSP2 head to head with the 3DS beast.

Cueil (on 10 July 2010)

Making exclusive content on the weakest platform is kind of retarded imho... if a shooter sells well on the 360 what do they gain from the putting exclusive content on the PS3 and the same only opposite with God of War clones... games like that perform better on the PS3...