The Lund Report: January 2012 NPD
I’ve been trying to hold off discussing the January NPD sales numbers until Sony or Nintendo elected to release their information, but since that doesn’t seem likely and since the NPD doesn’t release that info for them, here’s what we know.
In January, Microsoft took the top spot yet again with 270,000 unit sales. This constituted 49% of the retail console sales market. That means that Sony and Nintendo combined for the remaining 51%, which would come out to be 281,000. Since nobody outsold Microsoft that means the very best either of them could have done was 269,999 sales and the very worst they could have done is 11,001. The truth is somewhere in between.
If you add up all of 2011 sales for the Wii and PS3 you’ll find that generally the Wii gets 50.23% of the sales between the two and the PS3 gets the remaining 49.77% (based on total 2011 sales of 4,535,295 for the Wii and 4,494,619 for the PS3.)
Applying those percentages to the January sales gives us rough numbers of 141,146 for one console and 139,854 for the other for January. Since the PS3 has outsold the Wii for the last 5 months, I’m going to give them the higher number of the two. If the NPD, Sony or Nintendo would like to correct me they can feel free to release the actual numbers.
So far the Nintendo has said nothing and the official statement from Sony is filled with corporate double-speak:
“Following a strong December at retail, PlayStation continued the momentum in January through multi-retailer promotions such as ‘Play Days’ where we saw a 2x lift over forecast in peripheral sales and solid results for the PlayStation 3. February will be a landmark month for PlayStation and the gaming industry with the launch of PlayStation Vita on February 22. Pre-order sales for PS Vita and the launch lineup of 25 titles continue to accelerate as more consumers seek the ultimate in handheld gameplay.”
I’m not going to talk about comparisons to December, because Christmas makes any sort of sane comparison a moot point. However if you compare to January of 2011, the 360 sees a drop of over 29%. The PS3 has lost over 47% and the Wii is down over 56% year over year. It makes sense for the Vita sales to accelerate in February with a worldwide release after selling 15K units in its past week.
On the software side, sales are down too, but that seems mostly in response to a lack of new titles. January 2011 saw the release of two big sequels, Dead Space 2 and LittleBigPlanet 2, while pre-holiday titles like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood were still selling well enough to make the chart.
January 2012 had two major releases on the very last day of the month and as a result Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Soul Calibur V won’t have their sales tabulated until February. That means the entire top 10 consists of games from last year, Madden being the oldest having come out in August. No doubt the Super-Bowl hype helped drive sales of the big NFL game.
- 1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii / PC
- 2. Just Dance 3 Xbox 360 / Wii
- 3. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC
- 4. NBA 2K12 PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC / Wii / 3DS / PSP / PS2
- 5. Battlefield 3 PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC
- 6. Madden NFL 12 PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii / PSP / PS2
- 7. Mario Kart 7 3DS
- 8. Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii / 3DS / PC
- 9. Zumba Fitness 2 Wii
- 10. Saints Row: The Third PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC
The usual suspects with a few surprises. It’s nice that people are re-discovering Saints Row: The Third. Originally released in November where it hit #8 on the chart, it quickly vanished for December.
Skylanders placing in #8 this month is somewhat interesting as well, combining a Pokemon style creature system with gaming and figurine collecting.
Missing from the list are sequels to games that made the 2011 list, notably Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Batman: Arkham City. Either the fan base got bored with the IP or word of mouth on them wasn’t very good. Similarly Uncharted 3 launched strong in November and vanished.
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