Game sales slump badly while Xbox and Wii Sports show life
- August 14, 2009 15:26 PM PST
- Email this!
It's another month of plummeting sales in the US, as the video game industry experienced its fifth consecutive month of sales drops over 08.
Nintendo and Microsoft sales led a fifth straight month of US retail video game sales declines, while Wii sales plummeted despite a strong debut for Wii MotionPlus headliner Wii Sports Resort. Microsoft's Xbox 360 continued to exhibit trend-bucking year-to-date growth stamina, up 17 percent for the first seven months of 2009, making it the only console so far to show growth in 2009. Nintendo dominated software sales with mostly long established titles, while the Xbox 360 version of NCAA Football 10 sold 140k more copies than the PS3 version. Year-to-date sales stand at $8.16 billion, down 14% for the same time period last year.
How completely has the train jumped the tracks? NPD Group's Anita Frazier says the last five months of 2009 will have to register retail sales of 11% or more than the last five months of 2008 to come in flat. There's reason to suspect it's possible, and Fraizer points to games like Madden, The Beatles: Rock Band, Halo 3: ODST, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as candidates for a back-five sales recovery.
Every system took a hit this month, but the Xbox is hurting the least.
Hardware
539k - Nintendo DS
253k - Wii
203k - Xbox 360
123k - PSP
122k - PlayStation 3
108k - PlayStation 2
Hardware sales were down moderately to sharply for all platforms in July. From last month, Nintendo's DS and Wii sales each fell 30%, the 360 16%, the PSP 15%, the PS3 16%, and the PS2 29%.
Year-over-year, Nintendo's DS was only down 11% but the Wii crashed to earth with a 54% drop off July 2008 hardware figures. The Xbox 360, which was at this time last year slightly below the PS3 in July's estimated hardware numbers, was within the margin of error at 1% down (203k vs. 205k) compared to the PS3, which fell 46% (122k vs. 225k). The PSP dropped 45%, and PS2 sales fell 30%.
It looks like 2009 is turning out to be Microsoft's show. Said Frazier: "The Xbox 360 is the only console system showing a unit sales increase year-to-date, while the NDS has the highest sales of all hardware platforms both for the month, and year-to-date."
Like a dog chasing a Frisbee, all other games chase Wii Sports Resort on the sales charts.
Software
508k - Wii Sports Resort / Wii
377k - NCAA Football 10 / 360
237k - NCAA Football 10 / PS3
164k - Wii Fit / Wii
157k - Mario Kart / Wii
132k - Mario Kart / DS
116k - Pokemon Platinum / DS
116k - Fight Night Round 4 / 360
102k - New Super Mario Bros / DS
97k - EA Sports Active Bundle / Wii
The upside of NCAA Football 10's numbers with combined sales of 689k units across all platforms is that it's selling comparable to last year's NCAA Football 09. That's equally a downside, since it's technically selling comparable to a game that came out a year ago--when everyone's US hardware install footprint was much smaller.
Wii Sports Resort was the unsurprising winner, racking up "a 2.5% attach rate to the hardware install base," according to Frazier.
All in all, nothing much to see this month. The two salients: The PS3's longstanding sales slump is almost certainly due to its boutique pricing at this point, and Nintendo's Wii may have finally peaked, given the recent disproportionate declines in month-over-month sales.
Also: Bear in mind that Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is predicting a return to profitability next month.
Check out twitter.com/game_on for even more game-related news and opinion.
More Top GamePro Stories
Comments [36]
-
- Jump To Page:
- [ 1 ]
- 2
- 3
- 3
- 4
-
- Aug 14 2009 at 03:57:54:PM PST
-
Boy, is the gab between Wii and 360 shrinking. At this point in time it is hard to envision the PS3 pulling out of third place (at least in the US). Too bad when the PS3 drops $100 the 360 Elite will do the same. Sony is just in a bad spot.
- Vote:
- Down
- Up
- +5
- report user
everyone is buying used stuff now, thats why sales are going down. Game publishers/developers don't earn any money from sales of used games, only when new games are sold, which will eventually hurt them and cause less good games to be released. People just need to stop shopping at GameStop, since they rip off both customers and the game developers by always telling their customers to buy used instead of new.
- Vote:
- Down
- Up
- +6
- report user
I wouldn't worry about a decline in sales at all. There are some heavy hitters just around the corner. Madden dropped yesterday. That will have massive sales! Wolfenstein is just in days, I can't wait for that game personally. Gamepro, why no love Wolfenstein? A 360 price cut in 2 weeks. Halo ODST in a month, COD MW2, in 2 months. Good games are here. Sales will only go up.
- Vote:
- Down
- Up
- +6
- report user
SilentGhosteye wrote:
everyone is buying used stuff now, thats why sales are going down. Game publishers/developers don't earn any money from sales of used games, only when new games are sold, which will eventually hurt them and cause less good games to be released. People just need to stop shopping at GameStop, since they rip off both customers and the game developers by always telling their customers to buy used instead of new.
I really don't think it's fair that for a new game, you get only $25 MAX, and they will turn around and sell it for $55. Whoever buys a used game for $55 is nothing more than a moron. You might as well buy new. Anyways, that is 30 bucks a pop Gamestop gets on a USED game. Also Gamestop only gives $125 for a used PS3. They sell them for $350!!!! Does anyone here think that is right??? It's complete bullshit, yet you have people who do business with them anyway. It's nuts. Just because they only sell games the suck people in, they think Gamestop is awesome. I just buy all my games from Target, unless Gamestop is having some massive sale. That is the only way I will do any business with them. People need to send them a message and stop buying there. They need to either A. Lower their used game prices, or B. Give much better prices for trade ins. Until then, they aren't getting a penny from me.
- Vote:
- Down
- Up
- +4
- report user
It is interesting that the xbox 360 is hurting the least. Might this be because of XBox live?
- Vote:
- Down
- Up
- +7
- report user
the only reason why sales are down is because i can't afford anymore games. :D
- Vote:
- Down
- Up
- -2
- report user
denervaic wrote:
I really don't think it's fair that for a new game, you get only $25 MAX, and they will turn around and sell it for $55. Whoever buys a used game for $55 is nothing more than a moron. You might as well buy new. Anyways, that is 30 bucks a pop Gamestop gets on a USED game. Also Gamestop only gives $125 for a used PS3. They sell them for $350!!!! Does anyone here think that is right??? It's complete bullshit, yet you have people who do business with them anyway. It's nuts. Just because they only sell games the suck people in, they think Gamestop is awesome. I just buy all my games from Target, unless Gamestop is having some massive sale. That is the only way I will do any business with them. People need to send them a message and stop buying there. They need to either A. Lower their used game prices, or B. Give much better prices for trade ins. Until then, they aren't getting a penny from me.
Its not fair and its not right, and they will keep doing it. Too many idiots still buy those used games for that price or trade 4 or 5 games to get 1 used one. GameStop is a scam. Did you know they often fire employees when it gets near time to give them a raise. A lot of people apply to work there becuase they want to work with video games, GameStop takes advantage by always replacing employees to never have to give raises. The sad thing is, they hire someone to pretend to be a customer and go in and make an employee do something wrong so they can be fired.
- Vote:
- Down
- Up
- -3
- report user
