June’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 DS and DSi handhelds outsold all other systems by a long shot.
NPD analyst, Anita Frazier, had this to say: “The Xbox 360 is the only platform to have realized a unit sales increase over last June. Year-To-Date, both the 360 and NDS have generated an increase in unit sales. Although many track month-to-month sales changes, comparisons to May must take into account that June is a five-week reporting month while May spanned four weeks. — While Wii sales are down from last year, the platform is still realizing very strong sales month after month. Compared against historical performance of other systems this far into the console lifecycle, the unit sales performance is still strong.”
Video game hardware overview:
1. Nintendo DS — 766,500
2. Nintendo Wii — 361,700
3. Xbox 360 — 240,600
4. PlayStation 3 — 164,700
5. PlayStation Portable — 163,500
6. PlayStation 2 — 152,700
While some of the decline in retail sales could be a migration on the part of consumers to acquiring content via digital distribution, NPD reports on downloads and subscriptions reveal that it’s not yet having enough impact on the console market to be an overly meaningful factor in the retail down-turn. That said, there are increasing avenues for consumers to game, including via mobile devices like the iPhone.
The NPD mentions that “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 had a great debut at retail, nearly doubling the units sold in the first month at market of the previous best-two launches: PGA Tour ’05 and ’07, which sold 272K units each in their respective launch months . No doubt a combination of moving the release date of the game out of “Madden Month” into June where golf was heavily televised due to the U.S. Open as well as well-received new game features and attributes helped contribute to this success.
Interestingly, this is the first month since its launch at retail 29 months ago that Wii Play has not been featured in the top 10 list for the month. That’s an astonishing record for this industry. Prototype was the top selling title for the month, realizing roughly 600K units at retail across the two platforms. While this is solid performance for new IP, it’s a relatively modest sales figure for any game capturing the top spot for the month.”
Video game software overview top 10:
1. Prototype (Xbox 360) — 419,900
2. UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360) — 338,300
3. EA Sports Active bundle (Wii) — 289,100
4. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10* (Wii) — 272,400
5. Wii Fit with Balance Board (Wii) — 271,600
6. Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360) — 260,800
7. Fight Night Round 4 (PS3) — 210,300
8. Mario Kart with Wheel (Wii) — 202,100
9. Red Faction: Guerrilla (Xbox 360) — 199,400
10. Infamous (PS3) — 192,700
(*includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)
Ms. Frazier ended with “Our latest gamer segmentation study suggests that more than 4 million new ‘players’ have entered the games market since last year, so certainly the 12% year-to-date industry decline isn’t due to less folks participating in the industry. Some of these are new retail consumers and some are playing online for free, and others are a mix of both. The trick is to continue to figure out how to monetize all the gaming that is going on across PC, mobile devices, and video game systems. Certainly there is plenty of opportunity in the industry, but the rate of change in many areas of the industry presents a lot of challenge as well.
This is one of the first months where I think the impact of the economy is clearly reflected in the sales numbers. While the aggregate of content may not be as strong as what we saw in the first half of last year, and while the consumer base willing to spend dollars on hardware at the current price points may be thinning, the size of the decliine could also point to consumers deferring limited discretionary spending until a big event (must-have new title, hardware price cut) compels them to spend.”
Data courtesy of Neogaf