NPD October Video Game Sales + Q3 2008 Global Sales

First, NPD...

HW Sales
Hardware Unit Sales
Oct-08
PlayStation 2 136K
PlayStation 3 190K
PSP 193K
Xbox 360 371K
Wii 803K
Nintendo DS 491K

Top 10 SW
Publisher Release Date Rank # Units
360 FABLE II MICROSOFT (CORP) Oct-08 1 790K
WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD NINTENDO OF AMERICA May-08 2 487K
360 FALLOUT 3 BETHESDA SOFTWORKS Oct-08 3 375K
WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL NINTENDO OF AMERICA Apr-08 4 290K
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA Feb-07 5 282K
360 SAINTS ROW 2 THQ (CORP) Oct-08 6 270K
PS3 SOCOM: U.S. NAVY SEALS CONFRONTATION SONY (CORP) Oct-08 7 231K
PS3 LITTLE BIG PLANET SONY (CORP) Oct-08 8 215K
360 NBA 2K9 TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE (CORP) Oct-08 9 202K
360 DEAD SPACE ELECTRONIC ARTS Oct-08 10 193K

Industry Sales


Dollar Sales Oct-07 Oct-08 CHG YTD Oct 07 YTD Oct 08 CHG
Video Games $1.12B $1.31B 18% $10.50B $13.13B 25%
Video Games Hardware $470.47M $494.74M 5% $4.13B $4.72B 14%
Video Games Software $514.60M $696.79M 35% $4.98B $6.76B 36%
Video Game Accessories $130.81M $120.19 -8% $1.40B $1.65B 18%


I think I mentioned this in one of the previous threads, but we'll now be getting some rough "global" numbers for video games. Here is the first report from Q3:

 

Um...yeah...not quite 6 years yet. Just under 3 actually (360 launched on Nov 22, 2005). Unless you meant 6 years since we started hearing about new consoles, although even that is pretty early (Xbox 1 came out in late 2001).

The average is probably around 5-6 years, although it can vary depending on how successful (or unsuccessful) a console is. Of course, life span of a generation != lifespan of a console (see PS2).

So given past events, a new Xbox platform could be released as early as 2010 or so. If you want to know when talk about new consoles will begin, they technically start once the previous one has been released, if not sooner (IOW, there is already talk about a new Xbox platform). Of course, at this stage, not much is set in stone. Just some tidbits about some directions Microsoft (or others) might go. For example, Intel has been trying to get their new Larrabee architecture in one or more next-gen consoles, although I'm not sure if any of the big 3 have really strongly considered it yet.

This has been a bit of an unusual generation though, so you could possibly throw out things that happened in the past. Ever since the Wii was launched, there has been speculation that Nintendo would release a WiiHD shortly after. I guess that could still happen, but they'll probably wait until Wii sales slow down a bit...which at this rate, will probably put a new Nintendo console on the market 6+ years after the Wii.

360 and PS3 were higher priced than previous (mainstream) consoles, so that might extend their lifespan a bit as well. Microsoft just barely hit the magical $199 price point with the 360 (although not with their main SKU), and the PS3 probably won't be reaching that price point anytime soon. I forget the exact number, but I think ~80% of most console sales occur at this price point or lower, so those two systems probably have a lot of life left in them when it comes to sales. The strong competition between the two could also extend lifespans. Companies in previous generations would often try to get a head-start on a new generation whenever it was clear that their current console was more or less a failure (in terms of sales or profits...or both). But if all 3 companies continue to get some profit out of this generation, there may be less incentive to push ahead to another generation of machines.

 

After 2-3 years, it is hard to see things changing too drastically. I've been too busy to keep track of global numbers, but according to Wiki, there is a difference of about ~5M between the two systems. Maybe a year or 2 ago, I think I probably would have said that the PS3 could have easily overtaken that, but not so sure anymore. Japan (and Europe to a much lesser extent) should have made that up, but Sony just hasn't really had any success with the PS3 there...at least not nearly as much as they should have. I guess this is partly because Sony has completely ignored the region (and JRPG devs have ignored the PS3 for some reason), but I don't know how much more games like FFXIII and RE5 will affect things. Doubt it would take the PS3 from ~3M to ~13M or anything like that. But then again, maybe some more ads like this will get the job done:
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I think it might be close from this point on, but it will be hard for Sony to make up ground given the way things have gone so far.

I think they wanted to try to go w/o a price drop this quarter, trying to get by just on the appeal of LBP, R2, MS2, Blu-ray, MGS4, etc., but yeah, I think the economy has made things a bit tougher than they may have expected. Price cut in early 2009 will help out a lot...as will KZ2, although hopefully they actually try to advertise it. I haven't really like their ad campaigns (or lack their of) for their major games so far, especially something like LBP.

Speaking of LBP, hopefully it has some good legs. I do wonder if sales would have been better if it wasn't for the whole recall thing. I didn't even know it was coming out in October until a few days before it was released...although I did preorder it, so I wasn't paying that much attention.

 

They've basically been doing that. Or at least, they've strongly promoted the Blu-ray aspect of it...and then after that, they tried to push it more as a game machine. In the 2 years the PS3 has been out, Sony has had some difficulties figuring out exactly how to market it...or how to market it effectively anyway.