Game Stooge

The Lund Report: XBLA Sales Figures

• Scribbled on July 30th, 2010 by Jordan Lund
• Filed in Features, Microsoft Xbox 360, NPD, Xbox Live Arcade

One of the things missing when talking about NPD sales for hardware and software are sales made through digital distribution sources. Fortunately we can add one piece to that puzzle.

FADE (Forecasting and Analyzing Digital Entertainment) has released sales figures from the first half of 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade. Since the dollar figures are US dollars, and Microsoft currently sells points at a rate of 80 points per dollar we can take the revenue, multiply by 80 to get the total number of points spent and divide by the point cost to figure out (roughly) how many copies of each game were sold.

For games where the price has changed, the best we can do is come up with a range, minimum and maximum.

01. Toy Soldiers – $4.6 million (1200 Microsoft Points) – 306,667 copies sold.
02. Trials HD – $4.4 million (800 – 1200) – Between 293,333 and 440,000 copies sold.
03. Castle Crashers – $2.9 million (800 – 1200) – Between 193,333 and 290,000 copies sold.
04. Battlefield 1943 (EA DICE) – $2.5 million (800 – 1200) – Between 166,667 and 250,000 copies sold.
05. Perfect Dark – $2.4 million (800) – 240,000 copies sold.
06. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 – $1.8 million (800 – 1200) – Between 120,000 and 180,000 copies sold.
07. Family Game Night – $1.7 million (400 – 800) – Between 170,000 and 340,000 copies sold.
08. Shadow Complex – $1.2 million (800 – 1200) – Between 80,000 and 120,000 copies sold.
09. Magic: The Gathering – $900,000 (800) – 90,000 copies sold.
10. Call of Duty Classic – $800,000 (1200) – 53,333 copies sold.

So what can we learn about this, besides the fact that Magic: The Gathering is more or less done?

Well, folks are fond of talking about digital distribution and how it’s the future, but it’s clear from these numbers that retail sales aren’t going anywhere. These numbers from first through tenth are spread out over the course of a 6 month period but these titles are posting sales equivalent to what you’d see in one month at retail.

Out of the entire top ten the best selling (in terms of quantity sold) is the theoretical maximum for Trials HD at 440,000 copies. Now we know not all copies of it sold for 800 points so the actual number sold is somewhere south of that. That would be good enough to take the #1 or #2 spot on a single month of the NPD.

Unfortunately, we’re still missing numbers from the other big digital distribution houses so this is just one piece of a much, much bigger pie. How much does Sony sell through Playstation Network? Is anyone downloading anything from the Wii store? What about PC based services like Steam (which will soon be available on the PS3).

These are questions that have yet to be answered. Hopefully some company will step forward offering to collect that information and hopefully these distribution houses will be willing to cooperate.