September NPD

[Romier S]

Here are the September number guys:

 

HW

GBA $42,023,530 527,133

XBX $39,379,728 265,067

PS2 $38,046,609 253,295

GCN $11,387,827 114,789

 

ALL PLATFORMS

1 GBA POKEMON FIRERED W/ADP $21,065,130 684,283

2 XBX FABLE $29,948,580 604,084

3 GBA POKEMON LEAFGRN W/ADP $17,103,620 556,065

4 PS2 MADDEN NFL 2005 $14,226,930 288,747

5 XBX SW: BATTLEFRONT $13,395,470 275,186

6 PS2 SW: BATTLEFRONT $12,949,310 267,465

7 PS2 STAR OCEAN: TILL END $11,053,760 222,986

8 PS2 NBA LIVE 2005 $8,106,411 203,322

9 PS2 ESPN NFL 2K5 $3,956,769 203,101

10 PS2 TIGER WOODS PGA 2005 $8,297,772 169,657

11 PS2 NASCAR 2005:CHASE CUP $7,129,704 143,611

12 GCN PIKMIN 2 $6,583,169 132,618

13 XBX ESPN NFL 2K5 $2,481,845 128,226

14 XBX BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN $6,164,830 124,327

15 GCN WWE DAY OF RECKONING $6,070,188 122,168

 

GBA

1 POKEMON FIRERED W/ADP $21,065,130 684,283

2 POKEMON LEAFGRN W/ADP $17,103,620 556,065

3 DRAGONBALL Z: BUU'S $1,752,800 59,085

4 YU-GI-OH! RESHEF $1,288,909 42,417

5 SPIDER-MAN:THE MOVIE2 $1,178,754 40,479

6 MARIO BROS 3: MARIO 4 $1,177,994 38,906

7 MARIO VS. DONKEY KONG $987,152 31,746

8 SUPER MARIO CLASSIC $627,966 31,599

9 TEENAGE MUTANT TURTLE $331,434 28,711

10 POKEMON RUBY $909,743 27,327

11 NAMCO MUSEUM $392,329 26,996

12 SONIC ADVANCE 3 $771,602 26,224

13 POKEMON SAPPHIRE $861,662 26,151

14 DISNEY'S FINDING NEMO $507,598 25,557

15 SHREK 2 $686,001 23,765

 

GCN

1 PIKMIN 2 $6,583,169 132,618

2 WWE DAY OF RECKONING $6,070,188 122,168

3 DONKEY KONGA W/BONGOS $2,053,434 41,932

4 SUPER SMASH BRO MELEE $1,091,327 36,422

5 TALES OF SYMPHONIA $1,680,868 33,852

6 MADDEN NFL 2005 $1,658,302 33,441

7 SONIC MEGA COLLECTION $631,538 32,454

8 X-MEN: LEGENDS $1,466,533 29,463

9 SPONGEBOB: BATTLE $468,156 23,403

10 MARIO KART: DOUBLE $1,108,446 22,374

11 SOUL CALIBUR II $444,007 22,200

12 SPIDER-MAN:THE MOVIE2 $983,515 20,671

13 SONIC ADVENTURE 2 $396,458 19,796

14 TONY HAWK UNDERGROUND $390,054 19,553

15 SUPER MONKEY BALL 2 $381,227 19,198

 

PS2

1 MADDEN NFL 2005 $14,226,930 288,747

2 SW: BATTLEFRONT $12,949,310 267,465

3 STAR OCEAN: TILL END $11,053,760 222,986

4 NBA LIVE 2005 $8,106,411 203,322

5 ESPN NFL 2K5 $3,956,769 203,101

6 TIGER WOODS PGA 2005 $8,297,772 169,657

7 NASCAR 2005:CHASE CUP $7,129,704 143,611

8 SLY 2:BAND OF THIEVES $4,742,280 119,539

9 DEF JAM: FIGHT FOR NY $5,720,625 115,861

10 STREET FIGHTER ANNIV $3,328,188 111,680

11 BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN $5,198,917 104,545

12 STREET RACING SYNDCTE $4,840,836 97,316

13 ESPN NHL 2K5 $1,897,349 96,566

14 SHELLSHOCK: NAM '67 $4,774,473 95,837

15 X-MEN: LEGENDS $4,126,100 82,905

 

XBX

1 FABLE $29,948,580 604,084

2 SW: BATTLEFRONT $13,395,470 275,186

3 ESPN NFL 2K5 $2,481,845 128,226

4 BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN $6,164,830 124,327

5 MADDEN NFL 2005 $5,091,888 102,886

6 ESPN NHL 2K5 $1,922,700 97,983

7 TIGER WOODS PGA 2005 $4,425,786 90,158

8 HALO $2,609,295 87,529

9 NBA LIVE 2005 $3,266,275 81,958

10 ESPN NBA 2K5 $1,599,382 80,437

11 X-MEN: LEGENDS $3,817,020 76,829

12 STREET RACING SYNDCTE $3,498,198 70,415

13 NASCAR 2005:CHASE CUP $3,467,849 69,852

14 DEF JAM: FIGHT FOR NY $3,314,719 67,136

15 SHELLSHOCK: NAM '67 $2,730,086 54,837

 

Some pointers:

 

-Microsoft beat Sony once again in the hardware arena, but everyone just bowed down and continued to play catch up to the GBA. Comparisons to Duracell are apt at this point since the GBA keeps selling and selling and selling. Will the DS continue the GBA legacy?

 

-Taking this months NPD numbers into account, Halo has surpassed Gran Turismo 3's - 3,530,566 to become the third best selling title this generation.

 

-Fable is a huge hit for Microsoft this month with over 600k in sales. Mirroring the performance of another hit Xbox seller, Ninja Gaiden. Big Blue Box and Microsoft have to be happy with these numbers. It will be curious to see what kind of drop in sales the game sees next month considering the public backlash the game has received due to cut features etc.

 

-Can Nintendo say Pokemon? Of course they can and they will keep on saying it since it keeps on selling by the truckload. Those are just insane numbers for the GBA Pokemon games! It's curious that the GC is so Pokemon "light" considering how successful the franchise remains.

 

-I would say Lucasarts has themselves a hit with Battlefront, selling near half a million between the Xbox and PS2. The timing of the release is perfect as the game serves as an excellent hold-over for Halo 2 and Killzone respectively.

 

-Sly Cooper 2 debuted strong at 115k. Considering the games quality and the reputation of it's predecessor, I was expecting it to do better but it still has some time to catch on this month before the real blitz of the holiday season arrives.

 

-Sales of Def Jam were also strong but a tad underwhelming, selling only 64k on the Xbox. Considering its release date, PS2 owners thankfully gave the game a bit more of a chance. Gamecube owners on the other hand either missed the memo or just didn't care (I'll go with the latter). Hopefully EA considers this a decent success and continues making further Def Jam games. I would love to see another installment.

 

-With this months NPD, Madden 2005 has officially passed the 4 million mark folks. Next years should be interesting when we see ESPN's price hike back up.

 

-Sad to see those Xmen Legends numbers. It's a good game and I was hoping it would do better.**Addendum a few posts down**

[rustyjaw]

Although its numbers aren't earth-shattering, it's good to see Donkey Konga in 3rd place for NGC sales. Given the release date right at the end of Sept., 41,000 seems decent.

[Big Daddy Bling Bling]

Xmen sales look fine to me. It outdid the "strong" sales of Sly Cooper and I doubt porting costs were high since it seems to be one of those lowest common denominator cross platform games. I bet Donkey Konga sees steady sales as more people find out about it or try it out for themselves, as the reviews seemed overly harsh on it.

[Romier S]

It outdid the "strong" sales of Sly Cooper

 

Considering it was released simultaneously on three platforms, I would hope it could sell more than 115k or else Raven may have to start making deals with the devil to sell the game . Sly selling 115k in half of month (it was released on 9/15) is a strong debut, though as mentioned a tad underwhelming considering how popular its predecessor was amongst PS2 platform fans.

 

Looking at the release date on Xmen Legends though I may have spoken too soon on those numbers. For some reason I remembered Legends as an early release when in fact it was released near the end of the month (9/21). In essence, you are right, those numbers are a pretty darn good debut.

 

I bet Donkey Konga sees steady sales as more people find out about it or try it out for themselves

 

I agree. That 41,000 is actually mighty impressive as the Donkey Konga was on store shelves for less than a week (the game official release date was 9/28). Next month should be a far better indicator of how well the game is selling.

[JFo]

I think Sly 2 may be one of those games that continues to sell well for months to come. It may not draw the outrageous numbers those new Pokemon games pull in, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it eventually sell a million copies worldwide given enough time. The first one was just too damned popular and the sequel is too unbelieveably good not to sell tons of copies. At least, I hope that's the case.

 

Also, I'm somewhat sad to see that Pikmin 2 only sold 132,000 copies for the entire month of September. You would think that the sequel to one of the system's biggest launch titles would pull in bigger numbers than that.

[JoeyN]

Its good to see a few things

 

1)Day of Reckoning(GCN) had good numbers. Good wrestling game for the cube finally

 

2)Xbox owners continue the trend of liking ESPN Sports over EA sports. Hell ESPN Hockey almost came close to going ahead of Madden and it came out after it

 

3)Fable with such high numbers. Microsoft keeps getting hits one after another , leading up to Halo 2. which should blow all Xbox numbers away in peorders alone.

 

4)Good to see the people who already own PS2's starting to pick up a xbox

 

5)Donkey Konga with good numbers for only being out a week. What i really want to know is how many extra sets of bongos were picked up

 

 

I really cant wait to see Oct numbers. Im really intrested in seeing how many copies of Mortal Kombat have sold

 

capt

[Starhawk]

NBA Live beat ESPN Basketball on both systems? Live is one spot ahead on XBOX and ESPN is nowhere to be seen on PS2. Could this be because of street date differences?

 

If not, I'd be surprised as it looks like Sega could have left the price at $40 and probably made the same amount of money (while selling fewer units, of course).

[Beer Monkey]

It's not surprising for Xbox to keep beating PS2 in hardware sales due to them being at different points in their respective life cycles.

 

But for Battlefront and Burnout to both sell better on the Xbox...that is real validation that MS is doing the right thing.