Holy Halo Batman! - Sept. NPD numbers

[meStevo]

September NPD - The day the 360 claimed Sony's spot (and Nintendo still kicks ass) - NeoGAF

HW Sales
PlayStation 2 215K
PlayStation 3 119.4K
PlayStation Portable 284.5K
Xbox 360 527.8K
Wii 501K
Nintendo DS 495.8K
Game Boy Advance 75K

SW Sales
360 HALO 3* MICROSOFT (CORP) 1 3.3 million
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA 2 282K
NDS LEGEND OF ZELDA: PHANTOM HOURGLASS NINTENDO OF AMERICA 3 224K
PS2 MADDEN NFL 08 ELECTRONIC ARTS 4 205K
360 SKATE ELECTRONIC ARTS 5 175K
360 MADDEN NFL 08 ELECTRONIC ARTS 6 173K
WII METROID PRIME 3: CORRUPTION NINTENDO OF AMERICA 7 167K
360 BIOSHOCK TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE (CORP) 8 150K
NDS BRAIN AGE 2: MORE TRAINING IN MINUTES A NINTENDO OF AMERICA 9 141K
PS3 HEAVENLY SWORD SONY (CORP) 10 139K


Other #'s

Dollar Sales
Sep-06 Sep-07 YTD Sept 06 YTD Sept 07

Total Video Games $778.7 million $1.36 billion 74% $6.38 billion $9.37 billion 47%

Video Games Hardware
Console Hardware $145.5 million $418.6 million 188% $1.24 billion $2.69 billion 118%
Portable Game Hardware $98.4 million $126.25 million 28% $789 million $958.4 million 22%

Video Games Software
Console Software $335.8 million $550.5 million 64% $2.65 billion $3.35 billion 26%
Portable Game Software $109.6 million $103.1 million -6% $897.6 million $1.1 billion 23%

Video Game Accessories $89.5 million $157 million 76% $805.8 million $1.26 billion 57%

 

[jpdubose]

Xbox 360 527.8K
Wii 501K
Nintendo DS 495.8K

Wow...1.5 million consoles from just those three. 1 million from just Nintendo. That's pretty amazing. I knew the 360 would sell at least 500k, but I never thought that the Wii and DS would stay that close behind it.

 

[BobMurdoch]

The Wii is pulling in a LOT of casual gamers ( I travel a lot for work, and assisted living facilities are buying the things in droves..... A lot of bowling games getting played.... but I don't think they are buying Zelda...)

Meanwhile PS3s numbers FALL 8%..... Anyone still think they are gonna smite the 360 much less the Wii?

 

[BigTimMN]

200k a month isnt a dead system by any measurement.

The PS3 will survive, it wont win the war, but it will be a factor and will probably have solid consistent sales over the longest lifespan of any of the consoles.

The 360 will win the war, they did it right in getting to the market the fastest, HOWEVER, they are going to be running into issues when it comes to system lifespan without the built in HD-DVD storage coupled with the smallish hard drives on early systems will limit the system in the long run.

The Wii is a fad, a crazy billion dollar money making fad. It is making a huge splash, its saving Nintendo, BUT I dont see it moving alot of units of software, as its fairly gimicky and the novelty wears off over time.

I have one, and I am packing it back up in its box, and selling it this holiday season when the shortages begin again... Used system in original box with extra controller, and i bet i can get what i paid for it if not more. I played it, it was fun, but nothing i cant live without... and if i can break even after having it for 10 months.. why not

 

[mwgiii]

Excellent 360 hardware number but MS has to be somewhat disappointed that the 360 beat the Wii by only 27k. It still sets up the 360 to have a great holiday.

Terrible PS3 number. Sept was a 5 week month. The PS3 is back under 100k/month.
Aug - PS3 131,000 or 32,750 per week.
Sept - PS3 119,000 or 23,800 per week.

More proof that the majority of PS3 owners are buying the PS3 for a Blu-ray player instead of a game machine:
Heavenly Sword = 139K
Lair = 58K
Warhawk = 45K

Both X360 and Wii sold more in September than PS3 did in the entire July/August/September quarter.

Disappointing Metroid 3 number.

Excellent Halo 3 sales number and it is for only 12 days of sales.

Good PSP number.

Is the PS3 going to be the GameCube of this generation?

Best gifs so far:

 

[BobMurdoch]

I LIKE it! The PS3 is the new Gamecube.

They must be SOOOO proud....

 

[ONUOsFan]

Yes, I do still think it will catch the 360.

Again with the "PS3 is Gamecube" comparison? Didn't we beat that into the ground a week or two ago? If the PS3 numbers are still that low over the next couple months I'll start listening, but I doubt they will be. There were almost no good releases for PS3 in Sept, competing against HALO3 - what did anyone expect?

 

[BobMurdoch]

Yes, I do still think it will catch the 360.

Again with the "PS3 is Gamecube" comparison? Didn't we beat that into the ground a week or two ago? If the PS3 numbers are still that low over the next couple months I'll start listening, but I doubt they will be. There were almost no good releases for PS3 in Sept, competing against HALO3 - what did anyone expect?

um, for Sony to even SHOW UP with anything to try and wrench back the conversation to the PS3.... With a dozen big releases coming out, and hardly any Sony exclusives to counter the trend, it seems like they will fall even further behind. Do they think BluRay Spiderman 3 discs will push THAT many to the PS3?

Price chops still don't make up for the fact that current PS3 game sales don't produce a sustainable business model for most publishers.

Warhawk, their BIG game sold 45,000 copies in September. Halo 3 sold 100 TIMES that amount in one week.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Bob, the PS3 still has their big guns to come up (KillZone 2, MGS4, Final Fantasy) all of this games will be a huge hit, where the 360's big gun just went away (halo 3).
Bob, the gamecube died because they didn't have any good games coming up.

 

[meStevo]

Bob, the PS3 still has their big guns to come up (KillZone 2, MGS4, Final Fantasy) all of this games will be a huge hit, where the 360's big gun just went away (halo 3).
Bob, the gamecube died because they didn't have any good games coming up.

OK, so people can buy a PS3 before when those are released, which is... TBA 08, Q1 08, and TBA!

Sony declares victory... TBA.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Bob, the PS3 still has their big guns to come up (KillZone 2, MGS4, Final Fantasy) all of this games will be a huge hit, where the 360's big gun just went away (halo 3).
Bob, the gamecube died because they didn't have any good games coming up.

MGS will be announced as a non-exclusive any day now. Killzone 2 may or may not look as good as those cutscenes they showed 2-3 years ago (which will get here first? K2 or Duke Nukem Forever?). Final Fantasy will probably wind up coming out on the Wii too.....

Don't forget that Mass Effect and GTA4 are coming. GTA4 WILL be on the PS3 too, BUT extra content will only be available on the 360 via XBL download. Which would most people buy?

You've got a better chance convincing 3rd party developers to keep releasing titles for the PS2 than the PS3 nowadays.... Warhawk, your supposed Halo 3 killer sold in September less than 1% of the sales that Halo3 did in a WEEK at the end of September.

Hey, buck up.... you've got The Orange Box........ 2 MONTHS after we get it.

 

[IcEWoLF]

From what I hear there will be extra content available for the PS3 version too. (GTIV)
I still dubt MGS4 will come for the 360, Sony will pay any amount at this point to keep it exclusive.
I am looking forward to see Bungie making games for other consoles.
And finally Sony is releasing the Dual Shock 3 controller which I can't wait for it.

 

[jpdubose]

I still dubt MGS4 will come for the 360, Sony will pay any amount at this point to keep it exclusive.

I agree. This is far too important of a game for Sony for them to let it go multi-platform.

And I doubt you'll ever see FFXIII on the Wii. Have you watched the trailers? The Wii would go into nuclear meltdown trying to run that.

As to Killzone 2...They showed a playable demo at E3 this past summer and it was reported that it looked every bit as good as the tech trailers from 2 years ago.

Then you've got Rockstar saying they're going to do a new IP that's exclusive to PS3 and that it's going to be exclusive because they "wanted to do something you could only do on the PS3"
(link: Sony announces PS3-exclusive Rockstar franchise - News at GameSpot )

I've said it before, this winter is not going to see the end of this generations console war. It's going to be at least this time next year before you can really say if the PS3 is dead or not. They've had a rough start, but Sony may have enough of a fight in them yet to even up the score.

 

[FunkyBoss]

Excellent 360 hardware number but MS has to be somewhat disappointed that the 360 beat the Wii by only 27k. It still sets up the 360 to have a great holiday.

I don't think they should be disappointed at all. I don't really feel that the wii is competing with the 360 as much as the PS3 should be competing with the 360. I know many friends who have both a 360 and a wii or a PS3 and a wii. Or some that would normally not buy any of them, but decided to get a wii because of the "casual gamer" effect it has. So to sell half a million units in one month after the system has been out for almost 2 years sounds pretty good to me.

 

[BobMurdoch]

We own both a Wii and a 360.

We own 6 Wii games and 28 XBox360 games. Plus, add about 2 dozen Live Arcade games with only about 10 old school download games off the Wii download service.

I imagine that your average Wii user has even less than that. The hardware isn't the profit maker, the games are. Other than a handful of Nintendo first party titles, there are no huge unit numbers being moved.

I would love to see sales numbers for the big three software sales. I think the 360 will lead by a huge number in that case.... MAYBE the PS2 might inch up at us, but that's it. Here's the real number to watch...... About 10 million people owned the original XBox is I'm not mistaken..... They've already surpassed those numbers this time around. Meanwhile the PS2 moved upwards of 35 million units. About 10% of those have wound up going for the PS3.

What they need to do is have a massive price drop and eat the hardware losses in order to save the brand, or the unthinkable could happen. The 40 point favorite (market share wise) might get blown out by both rivals.....

 

[ONUOsFan]

Just as a side note, I find it funny that many of the same people who are here saying that PS3 cannot catch up and win the war against the 360 are on other threads saying just the opposite about HD-DVD....

And I think the point was that you can't compare it to Gamecube because that system never got any good games, while the PS3's best days are still ahead of it.

(and today is the first of those days, my Ratchet countdown is at T-minus 2 hours!)

 

[BobMurdoch]

Which then begs the argument.......

WHICH theory is closer to the truth. Is the underdog TOO far behind, or is the supposed dominant player weaker than he envisions?

That argument can go both ways.... If you feel that the PS3 will eventually win the race, will you acknowledge that HD DVD might do the same, even the presence of a strong headwind like the PS3 faces?

 

[ONUOsFan]

Which then begs the argument.......

WHICH theory is closer to the truth. Is the underdog TOO far behind, or is the supposed dominant player weaker than he envisions?

That argument can go both ways.... If you feel that the PS3 will eventually win the race, will you acknowledge that HD DVD might do the same, even the presence of a strong headwind like the PS3 faces?

I'm willing to admit that one of the underdogs can catch the other, and I actually believe it likely, especially considering the strong connection between the PS3 and Blu-Ray.

At this point, I think the gaming battle is far more important to the HD format war than vice versa - if the PS3 fails, Blu-Ray is probably doomed, as much as I hate to admit it.

PS3 can survive with BD being a viable video solution, but I don't think BD can survive without PS3.

360 and HD-DVD are only slightly linked IMO and either could survive without the other.

See? I can be reasonable... but I still have my beliefs about which ones are better....

EDIT: I think BD could survive without the PS3 EVENTUALLY, but not now. They need to get their standards set and get some better/cheaper stand-alone players out there before that is the case.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Hey, I relish the debate..... We both feel strongly that we are backing the better horse.....

I'm an oldschooler.... I remember the freedom my Laserdiscs gave me... no region coding, full freedom to buy any disc that had English subtitles from anywhere (as long as it wasn't PAL). HD DVD gets me back to those days by ditching the region coding that DVDs introduced. Thanks to the encoding standards, I don't even have to worry about PAL anymore.... Any HD DVD disk will work...

After the CD rootkit fiasco and various other onerous user-unfriendly schemes they've slammed down our throats over the years, I simply don't trust Sony to make my life easier. Hey, it's not just Sony, I put Apple in the same boat.... Try exporting those ITunes tracks to anything but an Ipod or your laptop....

 

[meStevo]

Even if (when! ) BD fails, PS3 will be a long term success for it's fans, though not as much for Sony, as the investment to get it to that point is going to be rough to weather for so long.

I'd also wager this rumored HDDVD 360 that Toshiba shot down might just be early leaked plans for the next generation of Xbox... even without the success of HDDVD, it could still be used as viable media for the next round of consoles, and their partnership with Toshiba just lends to it being their horse in the race and not BD.

BD and HDDVD, even if both failures, could just turn into viable propriatary high def media for the next couple generations of consoles.