System and game sales for September 2008 in the USA
September’s American video game sales data from the NPD is in, and like almost any month the past year, it shows an unchanged result: A Nintendo system on top, this time the Wii outsold all other systems.
NPD analyst, Anita Frazier, had this to say: “This is the first true monthly decline the industry has experienced since March of 2006. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that this month’s 7% decline is against a month (September 2007) that itself was up 75% from the prior September. Last year, Halo 3 released in September 2007 and that game had a huge impact on hardware and software sales. — Overall, the health of the video games industry remains quite strong despite the rocky economic conditions. Tracking against typical industry seasonality, the U.S. video games industry is positioned to realize $22B or more in revenues for the year (does not include PC Games).”
Video game hardware overview:
1. Nintendo Wii — 687,000
2. Nintendo DS — 536,800
3. Xbox 360 — 347,200
4. PlayStation Portable — 238,100
5. PlayStation 3 — 232,400
6. PlayStation 2 — 173,500
To no one’s surprise Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had a strong launch with over 1.1 million sales. Rock Band 2’s Xbox 360-exclusive debut didn’t do too bad at 363,000 sales, but will no doubt be a strong multiplatform seller when it’s released on the Wii, PS2 & PS3 later this year. Despite the NPD not listing PC titles, they mentioned “Spore realized sales of 406,000 units and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning sold 274,000 which would put them both in the top 10 list of combined console, portable and PC games sales for the month”.
Video game software overview top 10:
1. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360) — 610,000
2. Wii Fit (Wii) — 518,000
3. Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360) — 363,000
4. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) — 353,000
5. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3) — 325,000
6. Mercenaries 2: World In Flames (Xbox 360) — 297,000
7. Wii Play (Wii) — 243,000
8. Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360) — 224,000
9. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Wii) — 223,000
10. Madden NFL 09 (PS2) — 158,000
