According to the NPD Group’s statistics for the month of September,
it’s business as usual for Nintendo as they take up both top sales ranks with
the Wii and Nintendo DS taking up the first and second positions with 687,000
and 536,000 units respectively, leading their competitors by a wide margin,
despite last month’s Xbox 360 price cut. The overall market, however, is
showing a general decline, as total sales in September 2008 were 7% lower than
the same time last year, which marked a 75% increase from September 2006.
Nintendo have the competition eating dust, not only on the
sold units count, but also as far as games are concerned. No less than four of
the top ten best selling games for the month of September are Wii games. They
are Wii Fit (No.2), Mario Kart (No.4), Wii Play (No.7), and Star Wars: The
Force Unleashed for Wii (No. 9). It should be noted that the latter held top
ten positions, including the 1st, for all three of its console
variants.
Nintendo sales & marketing executive VP Cammie Dunaway attributes
the Wii’s success to its innovative controls: “The four Wii games in the top 10
all feature controls just not possible on other video game systems. The Wii
Balance Board and Wii Wheel give players new ways to interact with their games,
while the Wii Remote controller transforms into a pool cue, table tennis paddle
or lightsaber," said Dunaway. "Consumers have truly responded to this
variety of entertainment options."
Fighting it out for third and fourth places are the
Microsoft and Sony, with the Xbox 360 holding third place at 347,000 units, and
the PSP, Playstation 3, and Playstation 2, holding the fourth, fifth and sixth
positions with 238,000; 232,000, and 174,000 units respectively. It seems that
last month’s price cuts really helped Microsoft, whose Xbox 360 console used to
be neck and neck with the PS3, and which has now overtaken Sony by a long shot.
The Xbox 360 "is now the most affordable next
generation console on the market," according to Microsoft, at "$50
less than the Wii and half the price of the PlayStation 3." This doesn’t
seem to help them much, though, as Nintendo has sold 234,000 more units
than the previous month, even though September is generally seen as a “slow”
month by the game industry, and it also marks a 37% sales boost over September
of last year despite the overall market decline. What ever Nintendo are doing,
they appear to be doing it right.
Below is a list of sales figures for September, courtesy of Gamespot:
US
VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY - SEPTEMBER 2008
Software: $616.1M (-6%)
Hardware: $498.0M (-9%)
Accessories: $152.6M (-3%)
Total Games: $1.27B (-7%)
TOP-SELLING HARDWARE - SEPTEMBER 2008
Wii--687,000
Nintendo DS--536,800
Xbox 360--347,200
PlayStation Portable--238,100
PlayStation 3--232,400
PlayStation 2--173,500
TOP-SELLING SOFTWARE - SEPTEMBER 2008
Title / Publisher / Units*
1) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360) / LucasArts / 610,000
2) Wii Fit w/ Balance Board (WII) / Nintendo / 518,000
3) Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360) / MTV Games/Electronic Arts / 363,000
4) Mario Kart Wii w/ Wheel (WII) / Nintendo / 353,000
5) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3) / LucasArts / 325,000
6) Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts / 297,000
7) Wii Play w/ Remote (WII) / Nintendo / 243,000
8) Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts / 224,000
9) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (WII) / LucasArts / 223,000
10) Madden NFL 09 (PS2) / Electronic Arts / 158,000
* Figures include Collector's Editions and non-hardware bundles.
