NPD Sales Results for December 2008

[Christopher]

Care of NPD Group (but copied from NeoGAF)

 

 

 

PS2 410K

PS3 726K

PSP 1.02M

X360 1.44M

Wii 2.15M

DS 3.04M

 

 

WII PLAY W/ REMOTE 1.46M

360 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR 1.33M

WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD 999K

WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL 878K

WII GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR 859K

360 GEARS OF WAR 2 745K

360 LEFT 4 DEAD 629K

NDS MARIO KART 540K

PS3 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR 533K

WII ANIMAL CROSSING: CITY FOLK 497K

 

Top 10 Games of Calendar Year 2008 (from gamedaily.com):

 

1. Wii Play w/ remote - Wii – Nintendo – 5.28 million

2. Mario Kart Wii w/ wheel – Wii – Nintendo – 5.00 million

3. Wii Fit w/ balance board – Wii – Nintendo – 4.53 million

4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Wii – Nintendo – 4.17 million

5. Grand Theft Auto IV - Xbox 360 – Take-Two – 3.29 million*

6. Call of Duty: World at War - Xbox 360 – Activision – 2.75 million*

7. Gears of War 2 - Xbox 360 – Microsoft – 2.31 million*

8. Grand Theft Auto IV - PS3 – Take-Two – 1.89 million*

9. Madden NFL '09 - Xbox 360 – Electronic Arts – 1.87 million*

10. Mario Kart - DS – Nintendo – 1.65 million

Edited January 16, 2009 by Zyzomys

[kelley]

Nintendo's one two punch continues to amaze.

[EnemaEms]

All of those hardware number are really good. Nintendo is just mind-numbing.

 

Maybe Treyarch will see fit to finally patch COD:WaW since it outsold Gears2.

 

-Dean-

Edited January 16, 2009 by EnemaEms

[GreenMonkey]

Healthy sales for the xbox, not bad for the 2nd placeholder. PS2 sales have sure trickled down, haven't they? It's finally last-place in the sales.

[JoeyN]

Ps3 is down 9% from last year. Ouch. Good for L4D

[Josh]

It's almost like we're seeing a split from hardcore gamers (360, PS3) to the "rest" (Wii, DS), sort of how PC gaming split off from consoles years ago.

 

Just a thought.

[Lutter]

Jebus. I can't BELIEVE the Wii numbers for November and December! There are some people slapping high fives in Toyko as we speak.

[DaveC]

Those Wii numbers are really impressive..It's funny because my parents were over at a friends house the other day and my mom played a video game for the first time in her life..Wii sports bowling and now she's telling my dad that they should buy a Wii..I'm going ot give thm my console since I never use it but it just shows you how appealing this silly little machine is to the masses.

[GreenMonkey]

Break down of sales vs last gen...basically Wii = PS2, PS3= Gamecube.

 

http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/19/wii-is-on-track-to-outsell-playstation-2-while-ps-3-is-on-par-with-gamecube-sales/

 

In just over two years, the Wii outsold the PS2’s comparable initial sales by 10 percent, according to the NPD. That is, in the first 26 months of the Wii, Nintendo sold 17.5 million Wiis while Sony sold 15.9 million PS2s in the U.S. in the first 26 months of sales.

 

...

By comparison, the PS3 sold 6.79 million units in the U.S. during the same initial 26-month period, compared to 6.75 million GameCubes, which finished a distant third last generation and forced Nintendo to rethink how it sold video games.

Microsoft, for its part, sold 9.2 million Xbox 360s in the U.S. in its first 26 months, trailing Nintendo in a faraway second by a margin of 2 to 1 — the same position the company held last generation. But Microsoft has improved its fortunes: its latest machine sells 18 percent faster than its predecessor, according to NPD figures, and even turned a profit, something the original Xbox never did.

 

And third party sales on the Wii:

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21917

 

(I'll quote most of the article here)

"Basically, Pareto's Principle indicates that roughly eighty-percent of the effects of something comes from twenty-percent of the causes," explains NPD analyst Michael Klotz to Gamasutra in an exclusive interview examining U.S. game retail trends.

 

Following December 2008's NPD results, he discussed a key trend that's changing over time: "Looking at game sales from 2000 to 2008, 29 percent of the SKUs [individual game releases by format] that were in the market accounted for 80 percent of the sales."

 

"Looking forward to year-to-date 2008, it's actually down to 20 percent," continues Klotz. "Another way of looking at this is by examining the top 20 SKUs per year."

 

According to NPD data, in 2005, the top 20 SKUs accounted for 11 percent of the total unit sales. In 2008, the top 20 SKUs accounted for 18 percent of the total unit sales, NPD has found.

 

"You're really seeing that those top hits are the most important thing in the industry. And getting into that top-tier release is more important than ever before."

 

When Klotz looks at platform-by-platform, the Wii numbers are most significant. "13 percent of the SKUs that were released on the Wii account for 80 percent of the sales." The other platforms, he says, are closer to the 80/20 principle.

 

And in 2008, Wii produced some especially stunning numbers, according to Klotz: "When you're looking at the Wii, what's really interesting is, when you look at 2008, the top ten SKUs accounted for 44 percent of the sales. There were 432 titles available in the market for the Wii... strictly retail."

 

"You're looking at 422 titles that are competing for the remaining 56 percent of the sales," Klotz tells Gamasutra. He compares that to the PS2, PS3, and Xbox 360, where the top ten games only account for 31 percent to 32 percent of the sales.

 

"Those top ten games are such a huge piece of the Wii business," says Klotz. "And if you look at the top ten titles for the Wii, it's Mario Kart, Wii Fit, Wii Play.

 

I thought that was an interesting discussion point on how the market is changing.

[General Zot]

Another interesting question is the Wii phenom repeatable? Will grandmas and grandpas buy a Wii2 in 5 years or will they be happy keeping the bowling/tennis game machine they already own?

 

I kind of wonder if Nintendo will even have a next gen or if they'll just spin out small Wii evolutions for the next 10 years. It certainly worked for the Gameboy systems, don't see why it couldn't work for a console too.

[Covak]

Considering the Wii is an upgraded GameCube, it's kinda working for a console already

[Lutter]

Wii 2 won't be a replacement... it'll be an upgrade.

 

Something like the DS was to the Gameboy Advance: backwards compatible with some sort of new gimmick that'll hook new buyers in. They've just gotta tie something like Wii Sports 2 or Wii Fit 2 and make it Wii 2-only and they'll hook 'em in.

 

I don't think we'll see it for AT LEAST 5-7 years however... if not 10.

 

They're making a profit from each console sold so I don't see why they would EVER care that the thing is a "Wii Sports Machine".

[JoeyN]

You will see a Wii 2 a lot closer then 5-7 years.

[foogledricks]

Nintendo makes so much money on hardware and accessories. Of course they'll come out with a new Wii, relatively soon. They might even decide not to publish software for it anymore. Wii Fit 2 will be a self-contained hardware/game. Wiisports 3 will be an enhanced Wiimote with the game built in. Mario Kart will be embedded in the wheel that you play it on. Every Wii game will be its own console. We have seen the future and its wearing shades. 3D shades that have the next Mario Galaxy embedded in it.

[Camp]

I don't think we'll see it for AT LEAST 5-7 years however... if not 10.

 

That's crazy talk.

[General Zot]

Wii-sex. You heard it here first, I have the copyright. It prints money (I won't tell you from where, that's a secret.)

[Lutter]

That's crazy talk.

Eh... I forgot Wii has been out for 2 years already. I will revise to 3-5 years.

[Camp]

Eh... I forgot Wii has been out for 2 years already. I will revise to 3-5 years.

 

Slightly less crazy talk.

[Romier S]

I give the Wii a year and a half if not less before Nintendo pulls a DS Lite like reiteration of the console.

[Camp]

I'll go with Q4 2011

[dogbert]

For new revision or completely new machine?

[Graeme]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6203634.html

 

Gamespot has some numbers from NPD on how Guitar Hero WT and Rock Band 2 fared last year. Across all platforms GHWT sold 3.4 Million copies while RB2 only managed 1.7 Million.

 

One possible reason for this is that GHWT was released on all 4 platforms at once while RB2 had a staggered release from 360, then PS3, and finally PS2 and Wii mid December.

 

Also the fact that GHWT was also available in a Guitar/Game bundle might have helped, as well as all the other combinations that were available (Bundles with a GHWT Guitar and Les Paul, or two GHWT Guitars were also pretty easy to find and good value).

 

In my experience in working retail this Christmas, I'd have to say that the best selling Full Band bundle was easily Rock Band 1 though. We blew through pretty much our whole stock of RB1 bundles as they were quite cheap compared to RB2 and definitely GHWT. For people just getting into the rhythm game genre, they were a great value at $99-$110.

[Camp]

For new revision or completely new machine?

 

A new machine. Nintendo can continue to revise the current Wii via add-ons. Those add-ons better be compatible with the new machine too.

[kelley]

I'll go with Q4 2011

I'll agree with this. Matter in fact I expect we could easily see all 3 at the same time.

[OzzelsCousinFred]

Unless the economy stabilizes a lot more in the next 2 years, releasing a new console before then is extremely dangerous. I'd wager 2-3 years assuming the economy stabilizes some. I dont think even the major moneybags game companies are silly enough to try to launch a new console in the middle of such severe economic problems. Any recovery will begin now, but take 2-5 years before the entire economy is strong enough again to handle new console launches.