The Lund Report: September 2009 NPD
The NPD sales for last month, usually released on the 2nd Thursday of the month, were delayed until Monday for some reason. My guess is they were still counting PS3 sales.
Console sales:
- PS3 – 491,800
- Wii – 462,800
- Xbox 360 – 352,600
- PS2 – 146,000
Handheld sales:
- NDS – 524,200
- PSP – 190,400
What a difference a price cut makes, eh? Almost 500,000 unit sales for the PS3. To give you some idea how momentous this is: the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 have been competing head to head for 35 months. This is the 6th time the PS3 sales have beaten those of the Xbox 360, something they have failed to do for the last 14 months. This is the very FIRST time PS3 sales have beaten Wii sales.
This is the highest monthly sales the PS3 has had since December, 2008. It’s the 3rd highest monthly sales the PS3 has had since launch, being beaten only by December sales in 2007 and 2008. It’s the second time the PS3 has beaten prior years sales since October, 2008, the first time being last month.
The good news for the industry is that sales were up almost across the board compared to last month:
% sales difference September over August:
- Wii 66.83%
- 360 63.70%
- PS3 134.19%
- PS2 37.87%
- NDS -5.19%
- PSP 35.71%
Unfortunately, while the sales totals for September 2009 managed to outpace those for 2008, that corresponded to gains for only TWO systems:
- Wii -30.61%
- 360 1.56%
- PS3 111.62%
- PS2 -15.85%
- NDS -2.35%
- PSP -20.03%
2009 is also still running behind 2008.
January to September % difference 2009 over 2008:
- Wii -22.12%
- 360 14.51%
- PS3 -13.66%
- PS2 -34.54%
- NDS 17.89%
- PSP -37.48%
Total hardware units sold Jan to Sep 2008 – 18,293,300
Total hardware units sold Jan to Sep 2009 – 16,588,400
Top 10 software sales
- 1. Halo 3: ODST (360) / Microsoft / 1,520,000
- 2. Wii Sports Resort w/ Wii Motion Plus (Wii) / Nintendo / 442,900
- 3. Madden NFL 10 (360) / Electronic Arts / 289,600
- 4. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (NDS) / Nintendo / 258,100
- 5. The Beatles: Rock Band (360) / MTV Games / 254,000
- 6. Madden NFL 10 (PS3) / Electronic Arts / 246,500
- 7. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (360) / Activision / 236,000
- 8. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3) / Square Enix (Eidos) / 212,500
- 9. Guitar Hero 5 (360) / Activision / 210,800
- 10. The Beatles: Rock Band (Wii) / MTV Games / 208,600
As expected, the new Halo game captures the top spot in game sales, followed by Wii Sports Resort with the new enhanced motion sensor attachment and Madden, as usual, captures multiple spots in the top 10. What’s surprising is all those PS3 hardware sales didn’t seem to move much software. Granted, we don’t have the full top 20 list just yet, but the PS3 only managed two entries into the top 10: Madden which was going to be there anyway and Batman: Arkham Asylum. Both of which are hold-overs from last months sales.
What we will need to watch now is next months sales and see if Sony can maintain the momentum and if these sales move units of Uncharted 2 and Demon’s Souls. My guess would be that Uncharted 2 will do well, Demon’s Souls will not. The retailers in my area simply did not order significant quantities of the latter and they have not been re-stocked since selling out.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I can’t believe how well the PS3 is performing in sales lately. I thought Sony was toast this generation. Then again, anything is possible with big enough price cuts. Wii and 360 both have more to offer per dollar than PS3.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
“Well”? Depends on how you think “well” is. The PS3 has sold LESS units at this time than last year. And that’s WITH a price slash.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
The interesting months to watch will be November and December. Both the 360 and the Wii regularly break a million units in those months (with the Wii actually going over TWO million in Nov. and Dec. last year.)
The PS3 has yet to break 800,000 in any month so we’ll see how well the price cut carries by the time Christmas rolls around.