Tag Archives: february npd 2009

According to this Edge report, Sega sold through 45,000 copies of House of the Dead: Overkill in the US last month.

The game launched February 10.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier said it had placed about 50th in the US chart for February.

The new will be encouraging for Sega, especially as Wii-core brother MadWorld appears to be flopping pretty hard: the Platinum game charted at an eye-watering 34 in the UK last week.

Wired’s published the top 20 best-selling US games by platform, based on last week’s NPD figures.

Basically: Wii Fit, Street Fighter IV, Mario Kart DS, Libery City Stories.

Full thing through there. Thanks, Blerk.

Microsoft has said that Final Fantasy XIII will sell better on Xbox 360 than PS3 when it’s finally released outside of Japan.

This bit of confidence is based on this week’s NPD data, which also has the console-maker confident that the 360 version of Resident Evil 5 will also outsell its PS3 counterpart.

FFXIII is still a PS3 exclusive in Japan.

More through the links.

Wii Fit will be one year old this May, and has already surpassed Halo 3 in US sales.

According to NPD numbers released yesterday, as of February 2009 the Nintendo title has sold 6 million copies in the US alone.

Halo 3′s sold 5.9 million since September 2007.

With such an influx of balance boards out there, Kotaku is quick to point out that developers will probably be lined up around the block to make games for it.

We’re not arguing.

Sony’s responded to last nights NPD results via ever-reliable SCEA senior VP of marketing, Peter Dille.

“In February, we had a tremendous kickstart to what promises to be another record year for the PlayStation brand with the launch of mega blockbuster hit Killzone 2, which ranked in the top five with only two days of sales in February and has been garnering extraordinary reviews, and a noteworthy 92 Metacritic score,” he said, apparently without taking a breath.

“We have no doubt this game will deliver a next gen experience and will be responsible for driving hardware sales throughout the year.”

He went on about what to expect for the console in the coming year.

“Expect an onslaught of unmatched entertainment offerings to hit across our platforms, such as genre-leading PS3 titles like MLB’09: The Show and inFamous, and new content via the PlayStation Network like movies and TV shows from NBC Universal, and an unprecedented line-up of third and first party exclusives to hit the PSP”, he said.

“We have no doubt 2009 will be another year of continued momentum and we remain confident in delivering the best entertainment experience to our consumers.”

Just for reference, PS3 sold 276K units, PSS 99K, and PS2 131K units in February.

Microsoft’s finally done its bragging about last night’s NPD release.

According to February’s results, Microsoft has a 53 percent year-over-year spike in Xbox 360 sales with the console selling 391,000 units.

The company’s said February’s 53 percent year-on-year sales spike was due to competitive pricing and available software. Rather obviously.

Metacritic scores show that 135 Xbox 360 games score 80 or higher, with PS3 games only generating higher scores on 94 titles, claimed the firm.

Third-party sales on Xbox 360 raked in $162 million in February with users owning 8.2 titles each, thus leading Microsoft to claim the “highest attach rate among current-gen consoles”. Last month, the 360 attach rate was 8.1.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Patcher said today that while the February NPD looks good on paper, he expects “limited market reaction” to the figures.

While most publishers met or exceeded expectations – THQ not being one of them – Patcher said the figures would not effect stock buying options in a note today.

“We expect limited market reaction to the sales data”, he said. “While overall sales growth was quite respectable, Activision, Electronic Arts, THQ, Take-Two, and Ubisoft all delivered negative or flat sales compared to last year, with the month’s upside generated by solid performances from Nintendo, Sony and Capcom.

“Additionally, many publishers have adopted conservative views about the year, and we think that concerns about the economy are likely to limit share price appreciation.

“We think that this negativism could provide an opportunity, as solid hardware sales imply continued software sales strength well into 2009, and we continue to believe that the video game software sector remains highly recession-resistant”.

While he did admit that the strong software performance is “sustainable well into 2009″, he said software sales are likely to level out in August.

Hot shit. Edge has spat straight into Gamasutra’s face with the speed of its NPD analysis this month. Find its just-published take on last-night’s figures here.

Let’s see. The figures were in our inbox at 10.29pm GMT last night, and Edge now has a four-page feature, coloured graphs included, at 8.00am GMT. That probably equates to author Kris Graft crying into his cornflakes.

But still. You won, Edge. You really shoved it up Gama’s ass, right? Poor old Matt Mathews won’t know what the hell happened.

Get reading!

Nintendo’s post-NPD press release last night focussed on the fact Wii Play has now shipped more than 10 million units in the US. That’s quite a feat.

“Wii Play mini-games are fun and they get people playing together,” said NoA marketing boss Cammie Dunaway.

“Even if you believe people are buying Wii Play solely for the controller, that indicates that there are now more than 10 million people who have an extra Wii Remote controller in their homes.

“When added to the 12.7 million Wii Remote controllers that have sold separately, this reinforces the growing ‘social gaming’ trend we have been seeing where friends and family use their Wii games as a social hub – both in person and online.”

Wii hardware sales were up 74 percent over February 2008, selling nearly 753,000 units in the US last month.

Lifetime US Wii sales are close to 19 million.

Full thing after the break.

More »

While we still don’t know exactly how many copies of GTA: The Lost and Damned were downloaded last month, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg said last night that the figure was more than that achieved by Killzone 2 at retail – 323,000.

The exec told Gamasutra the DLC was “the most successful game add-on content we’ve ever launched,” adding, “If that content was sold at retail, it would be one of the best-sellers across all platforms. It would have outsold Killzone 2″.

It’s worth noting that TLAD launched on February 17, while Killzone 2 released on February 27.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Aaron “Green Machine” Greenberg has claimed that Sony’s PlayStation 3 business is “hemorrhaging at retail,” based on a 2 percent year-on-year drop in hardware sales, announced by NPD last night.

“You can’t underestimate that we’re half the price of the PS3 at a time when consumers were looking for great value,” he told Gamasutra.

“The PS3 was down in February two percent even with the launch of Killzone 2 — that’s months of year-over-year declines. Xbox continues to head north while the PS3 is heading south. We’re gaining share.”

“But what we hear from our partners is that it’s not just PS3, it’s also PS2 down 62 percent year over year,” he continued. “With that business declining, and with the PS3 business declining, it’s been described to me as hemorrhaging at retail right now, and it just keeps getting worse.

“What we’re finding in our research is that a large portion of the volume we’re driving with Xbox 360 purchasers is actually PS2 owners choosing Xbox for the next generation. We’re switching people from the PlayStation brand over to the Xbox brand.”

PlayStation 3 sold 276,000 units in the US last month, the largest percentage increase of any hardware platform month-on-month.

Get the full figures here.

Just-released NPD data has shown overall game revenues rose 10 percent in February compared to the same month in 2007, up to $1.47 billion.

Hardware sales were up 11 percent to $532.7 million, while software revenue climbed 9 percent to $733.5 million.

Accessories were up 13 percent to $207.1 million.

“The U.S. video games industry continues to post strong year-over-year comps despite the tough economy,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

“Unit sales increased even more than dollar sales did, reflecting a slightly lower average retail price for all categories as compared to last year.”

Despite Wii Fit taking the US number one in February’s NPD with 644,000 units sold, Street Fighter IV claimed a split-platform victory with 849,000 units moved over 360 and PS3.

Bit of a shock result for Killzone, there. Probably expected a bit more than just over 300,000 units.

Here’s the top ten:

1. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) – 644K
2. Street Fighter IV (Capcom, 360) – 446K
3. Street Fighter IV (Capcom, PS3) – 403K
4. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) – 386K
5. Killzone 2 (Sony, PS3) – 323K
6. Wii Mario Kart (Nintendo, Wii) – 263K
7. Call of Duty: World at War (Acti Blizz, 360) – 193K
8. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, DS) – 145K
9. New Super Mario Bros (Nintendo, DS) – 144K
10. Guitar HeroWorld Tour (Acti Blizz, Wii) – 136K

As predicted, Wii came in at around 750,000 units sold in the US last month, according to just-released NPD data.

Both 360 and PS3 were over analyst predictions, at almost 400,000 and 300,000 units respectively.

Here’s the lot:

• PlayStation 2 – 131K
• PlayStation 3 -276K
• PSP – 199K
• Xbox 360 – 391K
• Wii – 753K
• Nintendo DS – 588K

February was a significant month for both PS3 and 360.

“The Xbox 360 realized its biggest non-holiday sales month, save for September 2007, when the Halo 3 release brought in a large group of new owners,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

“Compared to last month, the PS3 realized the greatest month-over-month unit sales increase of all platforms.”

EEDAR’s released its February NPD estimates, and they’re pretty much the same as Michael Pachter’s, released earlier today.

• DS – 500,000
• Wii – 725,000
• PSP – 200,000
• PS3 – 200,000
• 360 – 300,000

Check Edge for the software estimates. The final figures release this Thursday.

Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter’s just released his NPD estimates for February, predicting yet another giant month for Wii.

“We estimate sell-through of 725,000 Wii, 300,000 Xbox 360 and 200,000 PS3 consoles (a 26% year-over-year unit increase in consoles),” said the analysts.

“Our console sell-through forecasts reflect our belief that supplies for Wii hardware were up year-over-year. Double-digit hardware unit growth implies solid software sales growth for the succeeding year, giving us confidence in our 12% growth estimate for 2009 U.S. software sales.”

The final figures release this Thursday.