Tag Archives: february

This week, Japanese hardware sales held steady – like an abandoned puppy waiting for its heartless master – only shuffling a lonely limb or two as needed to survive. Yeah. You’re reading about Japanese videogame hardware sales, and real, saucer-eyed canines are out there somewhere without even a sweater to their names.

Sickening.

Here are the figures:

• DSi – 53,483
• PSP – 34,256
• Wii – 21,016
• PS3 – 18,656
• DS Lite – 14,810
• Xbox 360 – 9,833
• PS2 – 5,332

Thanks, Chart Get.

Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that Mirror’s Edge was scheduled to receive a DLC time trial pack on January 29. According to a post by producer Tom Farrer on the PlayStation Blog, however, fans won’t be hurdling across blocky, unrealistic levels until February.

When contacted by Shacknews for clarification, EA explained that DICE stuck a leg in front of Faith’s sprint in order to provide “a completely smooth experience.”

The PS3-exclusive “Synethesia” map, on the other hand, is plenty smooth already, and will still release tomorrow – for free, no less.

Check out the PS Blog link for more tantalizing info about the delayed maps, along with a highly invasive peek inside Faith’s noggin.

By Nathan Grayson

Those boys really do love their graphs. Next-Gen’s beaten the February NPD data to death, hung it up in a tree and set fire to it, just for completion’s sake, publishing six pages of graphs, figures and words on what US games sales mean to you. There are black and white graphs, green graphs and red graphs, line graphs, block graphs and pointy dot graphs. Honestly, it’s worth looking at just for the range of graphs.

You need to know what’s happening at US retail. It’s so important you know what PS3′s attach ratio was for February. You may die if you don’t. Thankfully, then, we got up in the middle of the night to write about all this stuff. Below you’ll find links to everything related to NPD data for the last month, including figures and responses from the platform holders. Don’t go changing.

NPD figures: Xbox 360 battered as US sales hit $1.33 billion
NPD figures: CoD4 on 360 dominates US in February
NPD figures: Cut 360 price now to curb PS3 momentum, says analyst
NPD figures: Nintendo focuses on giant hardware sales
NPD figures: Microsoft focuses on GTA IV and “improving” hardware stocks
NPD figures: “This is the year for PS3″, says Tretton

Jesse Divnich, analyst for prediction market the simExchange, has said that PlayStation 3 has now gained real momentum in the US and that Microsoft must cut the price of the mahcine to remain competitive.

His comments came after the release of February NPD data last night, which showed PS3 ahead of 360 in America for the second month in a row.

“Whether there is an Xbox 360 shortage or not, it is clear that the PS3 has gained considerable ground on its rival,” said Divnich. “Given these past two months and the momentum that the PS3 has gained, Microsoft must react quickly as the PS3′s momentum will only get stronger until Microsoft reacts.”

He added: “In the short-term, Microsoft’s only feasible and economical option is to look at reducing its hardware price in North America to at least slow down the PS3′s momentum until it can implement more long-term solutions to winning the next-generation console war.”

Microsoft had already said this week that the reason for the low 360 sales last month was supply issues.

Nintendo’s response to last night’s NPD figures focused on the fact DS and Wii had acheived nothing short of stunning success in America last month.

“The latest video game industry sales figures reported by the independent NPD Group show that Nintendo DS and Wii topped the US charts for February,” said the statement. “Nintendo DS sold nearly 587,600 units and Wii sold nearly 432,000.”

Cammie Dunaway, NoA’s executive vice president of sales and marketing said, “Our momentum has not let up since the holidays and we expect it to continue throughout the year. We have the industry’s strongest lineup of games for everyone from core to casual gamers.”

Get hardware figures here (Nintendo properly won), software figures here and the rest of Nintendo’s statement after the link.

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Microsoft’s response to last night’s NPD data was a tad more muted than Sony and Nintendo’s – unsurprising as Xbox 360 was beaten into fifth place out of six consoles for the month – focusing instead on the upcoming April release of GTA IV.

“For February’s NPD reporting period, Xbox 360 remained in a supply constrained situation,” said the company in a statement. “The situation is improving and we are confident consumers will soon be able to find the Xbox 360 SKU they seek, in time for the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV, which we expect to be one of the biggest titles of the year with huge impact on the Xbox 360 platform.”

Despite disappointing figures for the month, Microsoft did a good job of spinning the data, saying that $332 million was spent on Xbox 360 throughout the month compared to $235 million on PS3 and $283 million on Wii; that Xbox 360 now has a US installed base of 9.6 million compared to PS3′s 3.8 million and Wii’s 8.1 million; and that Xbox 360′s attach rate in February was 7.2, nearly twice that of the PS3 or the Wii.

Read the rest after the link.

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Call of Duty 4 on Xbox 360 topped US games sales for February, according to NPD data released overnight. Note that five of the top ten games are on 360, despite some fairly terrible stock handling for the month from Microsoft.

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) – 296.2K
2. Devil May Cry 4 (Xbox 360) – 295.2K
3. Wii Play w/remote (Wii) – 289.7K
4. Devil May Cry 4 (PS3) – 233.5K
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) – 222.9K
6. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) – 205.6K
7. Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360) – 203.6K
8. Turok (Xbox 360) – 197.7K
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) – 183.8K
10. Rock Band (Xbox 360) – 161.8K

Here they are, then. NPD released sales data for the US market in February overnight, and Microsoft was right to call it early. Xbox 360 got a proper shoeing in the hardware stakes, coming is as the second least highest selling machine in America next only to PSP. Microsoft said earlier this week that the disappointing performance was due to supply issues which should be sorted by April.

Overall sales rose a dramatic 34 percent to $1.33 billion. Hardware sales grew 19 percent to $480 million. Accessories also grew 36 percent, totaling $185.3 million. Here’s what happened in harware. Find software details a href=”http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/03/14/npd-figures-cod4-on-360-dominates-us-in-february/”>here.

1. DS: 587.6K 336.6K (up 134%)
2. Wii: 432K 158K (up 58%)
3. PS2: 351.8K 87.8K (up 33%)
4. PS3: 280.8K 11.8K (up 4%)
5. Xbox 360: 254.6K 24.6K (up 11%)
6. PSP: 243.1K 13.1K (up 6%)