Tag Archives: August 2009 NPD

Microsoft has responded to last night’s NPD figures by stating that Xbox 360 was the only console showing growth in the US this year, with sales increasing 17 percent year-over-year within the first eight months of 2009.

Sales for Xbox 360 reached 215,000 units for August and the company attributes this to the console’s starting price of $199, along with Netflix, and new stuff coming down the pipe (Last.fm, Facebook).

Additionally, the recent price reduction of the Xbox 360 Elite model to $299 has “set the stage for continued growth this year”, according to Microsoft, with the first week of sales “surpassing expectations”.

“Third-party sales on Xbox 360 totaled $130.4 million in August, more than any other system, and Xbox 360 has maintained the streak of leading third-party sales for every month of 2009,” said Microsoft. “Xbox 360 is also home to some of the season’s most-anticipated blockbuster titles with a line-up of exclusives that include Halo 3: ODST in September, Forza Motorsport 3 in October, and Left 4 Dead 2 this November.

“Fans across the country continued to make Xbox 360 the most popular way to play Madden NFL 10, and two other Xbox 360 titles, Batman: Arkham Asylum and NCAA Football 10 also made the top 10 console games list, showing that third-party titles continue to find success on Xbox 360.”

In the 12 months through August, Live has garnered over 20 million active members worldwide, with sales of this year’s Summer of Arcade more than doubling that of last year.

Next month, we will see just how high of a sales jump 360 attained with the recent price cut. It should prove to be very interesting.

Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter believes that the new price scheme for PS3 and Xbox 360 has put pressure on Wii, and expects a sales growth for PS3 in September; therefore a price cut is necessary for Wii to continue to compete in the market.

“Until the late August PS3 price cut, the Xbox 360 appealed to consumers, likely due to a higher perceived value proposition (the Xbox 360 ‘core’ model was priced $100 lower than the PS3),” he wrote. “With the core PS3 and Xbox 360 models priced only $50 higher than the Wii, we expect year-over-year sales of Wii hardware to continue their annual declines until the company either changes its bundle or lowers price.

“Wii unit sales are 50% below last year’s level over the last five months, and we think that September sales will repeat the pattern.

“The late August price cut for the PS3 clearly drove a pickup in demand, with that console’s sales up 73 percent sequentially, and we expect another 50 – 100 percent sales growth in September.”

The NPD figures for August showed a hardware sales were down 25 percent with Wii selling 277,000 units representing a 39 percent decline. Xbox 360 blew through 215,000 units garnering a 10 percent increase, while Sony’s PS3 moved 210,000 units and jumped 13 percent in sales, which is a 73 percent increase from July’s numbers.

Thanks, IndustryGamers.

In August, Nintendo hardware sales continued to increase month-to-month, with DS tops for the second month in a row, and Wii the second best selling console, again, for August.

Combined, DS and Wii moved 830,300 units while broken down, DS moved 552,900 and Wii 227,400.

“August NPD results showed an increase in month-to-month sales for both Wii and Nintendo DS hardware systems, demonstrating the continued appeal of our value-conscious products,” said Nintendo in a statement.

“For the fifth consecutive month, the Nintendo DS enjoyed outstanding retail performance, selling through twice as many units as any other system in August and breaking the record for monthly hardware sales for August.

“Wii is the only console that continues to consistently sell more than a quarter of a million units each month, as it has done in every one of the past 34 months since its launch in 2006.”

Nintendo had four of the top 10 best selling software titles, three being for Wii, which included: Wii Sports Resort moving 754,000 units, Wii Fit 128,000, Mario Kart Wii 120,000, and Fossil Fighters on DS moving 92,000 units.

NPD Group’s Anita Frazier has stated that music game sales are down 46 percent year-on-year, and but unit sales are “down much less because lower prices are playing into the dollar sales decline.”

However, there looks to be a possible silver-lining with The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 both having debuted this month, so sales should be up for the genre when September figures are released next month.

Still, Frazier says that “it’s the third best-selling genre for the year after General Action and Multiple/Other Sports.”

Good to know.

The NPD numbers are in for the month of August, and the industry saw its sixth consecutive month-over-month decline, what with the 16 percent slip year-on-year.

While this is an improvement over the past few month, the decline can only be combated by climbing 14 percent aggregate for 2009 to “come in flat in comparison to 2008 sales,” says NPD Group’s Anita Frazier.

Combined sales of accessories, hardware, and software, and accessories totaled $908.72 million, which compared to $848.9 million in July, shows improvement, if only slight.

Accessories were only category to experience an increase over last year’s sales, and this surge in sales of peripherals and controllers owes thanks in part to the upward trend in hardware sales.

With the price cuts for PS3 and Xbox 360 just getting started, next month’s figures should prove to be more interesting, indeed.

The August NPD numbers are out, and while the industry as a whole was still down, Madden NFL 10 stole the charts by bringing in 928,000 followed by Wii Sports Resort w/WMP at 754,000.

Earlier, it was reported that EA CEO John Riccitiello was “disappointed” with Madden NFL 10 sales saying it was “discouraging”, that “one of our highest-rated and best-marketed ‘Madden’ titles in years is facing strong headwinds” during its debut.

1. Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360) – 928,000
2. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo Wii) – 754,000
3. Madden NFL 10 (Playstation 3) – 665,000
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360) – 303,000
5. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Playstation 3) – 290,000
6. Madden NFL 10 (Playstation 2) – 160,000
7. Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP) – 130,000
8. Wii Fit (Nintendo Wii) – 128,000
9. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo Wii) – 120,000
10. Fossil Fighters (Nintendo DS) – 92,000

Also of note, is that PS3 was the only platform to realize a year-over-year increase in total software sales and this is reflected in the top 10 list for the month which includes two PS3 games.

According to the NPD Group’s Anita Frazier, all hardware systems with the exception of PS2 “realized an increase in unit sales over July”.

The PS3 captured the greatest increase month-over-month with unit sales boosted by 72% over July levels, but DS was the clear winner in August.

• DS 552.9K (538.9K)
• Wii 277.4K (252.5K)
• Xbox 360 215.4K (202.9K)
• PS3 210.0K (121.8K)
• PSP 140.3K (122.8K)
• PS2 105.9K (108K)

All hardware systems with the exception of the PS2 realized an increase in unit sales over July – those figures are in parenthesis.

Frazier also noted in the release that Wii is selling at levels comparable to what PS2 was doing at about this point in its lifecycle.

Interesting.