August NPD: Summer Sales Slump

While Microsoft’s 360 marks two months in a row at the top of the hardware chart, the only console to show a month-on-month increase in unit sales was Sony’s PS3.  The 360 is falling back from its highs following the launch of the 360 S, but with the imminent release of Halo: Reach and its special edition 360 S, it would not be a surprise to see it achieve a hat-trick of number ones in September’s figures.  Overall unit sales were down over 10% compared to July.

Hardware Sales

1. Xbox 360 356,000 (-20% compared to July)
2. Nintendo DS 342,700 (-14%)
3. Wii 244,300 (-4%)
4. PlayStation 3 226,000 (+5%)
5. PSP 79,400 (-5%)

The PS3 has now achieved year-over-year (e.g., Aug ’10 vs. Aug ’09) unit sales increases for thirteen consecutive months, but that is likely to come to an end next month with the anniversary of the release of the PS3 Slim.  I suspect that even with the release of Move the PS3 will not be able to overcome the total of 491,800 unit sales it recorded last September.

The PS3 is not alone in recording a year-over-year increase, the 360 managed it too, while all the other consoles were down.  The 360, thanks to the 360 S, is up a massive 65% compared to last August, the PS3 is up a much more modest 8%.  The Wii is down 11%, the DS is down 38% and the PSP is down 43%.  The overall comparison is down 17%.

Looking at the picture in dollar terms, the month’s retail sales at $818.9 million were down $91.4m (10%) compared to last August.  Breaking that total figure down, hardware sales of $282.9m were down $14.7m (5%) while software sales of $403.5m were down $67.7m (14%).

While August’s video game retail sales are poor compared to the last few years and much is being made of that among the sources I have read, you only have to go back to 2006 to find a worse set of August figures.  As we are also now arguably at the point where the global financial situation is hitting consumers harder than at any time since the current troubles began in 2007/8 the fact you do not have to look far back to find a worse performance surely speaks to the strength of the video games market.

Every August Madden dominates the American software charts and it is no different this time around as it takes over at the top of the chart from NCAA Football.  One interesting comparison to its performance last August is how much closer sales of the PS3 version are those of the 360.  Last year the 360 version had an advantage of over 300,000 (928k vs. 665k).  This year its lead is less than a tenth of that.

The lack of other new titles, aside from Mafia 2, means that Mario titles have jumped further up the chart.  The DS version of New Super Mario Bros., at fifth place in the chart this month, was released in the way back in May 2006.  I wonder how many games over four years old have appeared in the chart?

StarCraft II and Lego Harry Potter both got a mention in last month’s figures and they did again this time around.  StarCraft II sold over 300,000 more copies making it the second-best selling game in the all formats chart.  While no longer appearing in the top 10, Lego Harry Potter still shifted enough copies across its many versions to make it into the top five for all-format titles.

Software Sales

1. Madden NFL 11 (360, EA) 920,000
2. Madden NFL 11 (PS3, EA) 893,600
3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, Nintendo) 124,600
4. Mafia 2 (360, Take 2 Interactive) 121,600
5. New Super Mario Bros. (DS, Nintendo) 110,400
6. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, Nintendo)
7. Mafia 2 (PS3, Take 2 Interactive)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (360, Activision)
9. NCAA Football 11 (360, EA)
10. Wii Fit Plus (Wii, Nintendo)