NPD April 2010

[obonicus]

Thanks to GAF:



Thanks to NPD for the numbers.

PlayStation 3 180.8K
PSP 65.5K
Xbox 360 185.4K
Wii 277.2K
Nintendo DS 440.8K

1. TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL: CONVICTION* 360 UBISOFT Apr-10 486.1K
2. POKEMON SOULSILVER VERSION NDS NINTENDO OF AMERICA Mar-10 242.9K
3. NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Nov-09 200.3K
4. POKEMON HEARTGOLD VERSION NDS NINTENDO OF AMERICA Mar-10 192.6K
5. GOD OF WAR III* PS3 SONY Mar-10 180.3K
6. WII SPORTS RESORT W/ WII MOTION PLUS* WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Jul-09
7. BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS Mar-10 166K
8. WII FIT PLUS W/ BALANCE BOARD* WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Oct-09
9. JUST DANCE WII UBISOFT Nov-09
10. SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV PS3 CAPCOM USA Apr-10 143K

*. SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV 360 CAPCOM USA Apr-10 108K

(*includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)

Aha, that's why no full numbers:

According to NPD:
Top 5 with units only now
PS2 not reported (certainly still tracked)

 

[obonicus]

Sorta sad month, especially after the amazing numbers in March.

 

[Nesh]

I think people have begun to anticipate price cuts, offers and announcements from experience. They could be waiting for summer announcements before they make a purchase

 

[zed]

Yes bad numbers all round, the wii numbers are the 2nd worse ever.
the ps3 has finally passed 20% marketshare, it wot, took only 41months

If you look at amazon the wii has dropped out of the top10 (I dont seem to remember that happening before) the ps3 is still out of stock! how many months is that now in a row, 3 or something, What are sony doing?

 

[BadTB25]

I think people have begun to anticipate price cuts, offers and announcements from experience. They could be waiting for summer announcements before they make a purchase

That's my situation after my launch 360 died.
I'm hoping to hear a slim or Natal bundle announced.

Does anyone know where I can pick up a transfer cable on the cheap?

 

[AzBat]

That's my situation after my launch 360 died.
I'm hoping to hear a slim or Natal bundle announced.

Does anyone know where I can pick up a transfer cable on the cheap?

Best place is eBay, that's where I got mine.

Tommy McClain

 

[corduroygt]

I think the unemployment benefits are starting run out these days.

 

[thop]

Year on Tear is a fairly accurate statement

 

[DuckThor Evil]

the ps3 is still out of stock! at Amazon how many months is that now in a row, 3 or something, What are sony doing?

The bolded is mine

Currently the PS3 120GB seems to be the top selling hardware unit at Amazon.com so I'm sure they have shifted plenty of units during those "3 or something" months. I'm sure if you put the order in now you don't have to wait long for the unit. It obviously is in great demand at Amazon, but partly it might also be often out of stock, because Amazon likes to keep small stock buffers.

 

[Squilliam]

Zed and his world beating NZ only NPD graphs. More proof of our superiority.

 

[Rangers]

Yes bad numbers all round, the wii numbers are the 2nd worse ever.
the ps3 has finally passed 20% marketshare, it wot, took only 41months

If you look at amazon the wii has dropped out of the top10 (I dont seem to remember that happening before) the ps3 is still out of stock! how many months is that now in a row, 3 or something, What are sony doing?

No offense, it's nice that you take the time to do the graphs, but I cant read them at all.

As for Wii at Amazon...wasn't it out of stock as usual? That typically affects the ranking.

But there's no doubt that on an overall basis, Wii is losing share and the HD twins are gaining share, that's been clear for a while now. I mean, it's pretty rare for Wii to get the #1 monthly software spot anymore. And a pie chart last month showed PS360 had about 2/3 share of USA software dollars while Wii has 1/3. In past times I think it was closer to 1/2 and 1/2.

The problem is the HD twins are so aggressive. They just keep coming with endless big games, aggressive price cuts, new hardware SKU's (slim models) etc etc. PS3 has slowly pulled itself up by it's bootstraps by these methods, making a lot of the sales difference, while 360 has stayed steady. But yet they will have Natal and Move and probably 360 slim and Halo Reach and GT5 and maybe some more price cuts this fall.

Anyways, how is PS3 shortaged with such low sales? It's pretty odd. I saw one message board comment that Sony must be withholding them for profit reasons (though, if PS3 is profitable as they claim, doesn't make sense)

 

[liolio]

No offense, it's nice that you take the time to do the graphs, but I cant read them at all.

As for Wii at Amazon...wasn't it out of stock as usual? That typically affects the ranking.

But there's no doubt that on an overall basis, Wii is losing share and the HD twins are gaining share, that's been clear for a while now. I mean, it's pretty rare for Wii to get the #1 monthly software spot anymore. And a pie chart last month showed PS360 had about 2/3 share of USA software dollars while Wii has 1/3. In past times I think it was closer to 1/2 and 1/2.

The problem is the HD twins are so aggressive. They just keep coming with endless big games, aggressive price cuts, new hardware SKU's (slim models) etc etc. PS3 has slowly pulled itself up by it's bootstraps by these methods, making a lot of the sales difference, while 360 has stayed steady. But yet they will have Natal and Move and probably 360 slim and Halo Reach and GT5 and maybe some more price cuts this fall.

Anyways, how is PS3 shortaged with such low sales? It's pretty odd. I saw one message board comment that Sony must be withholding them for profit reasons (though, if PS3 is profitable as they claim, doesn't make sense)

Yep that's really strange, by the way are Sony financial results out?
I read some numbers but I'm not sure they are reliable:
Sony as a whole may have gained ~200 millions pounds while the "Network Product and Services division" lost ~600 millions pounds.
What exactely is include the entertainment in this division? There is Vaio, and consoles, games what else?

In regard to the sales, well it's ugly...

I think the unemployment benefits are starting run out these days.

Excuse my thickness I don't get what you mean? Do you mean that as an "excuse" the argument get weaker or it's otherwise, like people who lost their job are more and more likely to no longer be supported by the government?
I for my self think that the argument is valid, more and more people have been out of work for a while now, may no longer be supported by the government and the prospects are not good at all.

 

[Rangers]

Yes Sony financial have been out, I'm surprised nobody posted them.

BTW the sales are ugly, but it's fairly comparable to last April apparently (besides a massive decrease in DS sales, mostly due to DSi release last year), which makes some of the comments I'm seeing such as "bring on the next gen already, these are dead" rather silly.

I admit I wasn't expecting these low numbers either, but once you simply look at April 2009 they come into focus.

 

[liolio]

2010 vs 2009
2009:
PlayStation 2 172K
PlayStation 3 127K
PSP 116K
Xbox 360 175K
Wii 340K
Nintendo DS 1.04M

2010:
PlayStation 3 180.8K
PSP 65.5K
Xbox 360 185.4K
Wii 277.2K
Nintendo DS 440.8K

Ranger you're right I should have refreshed my memory before doing such a statement

 

[obonicus]

The comments of 'bring on next gen' generally come from people with low attention spans. Last month was ridiculously strong for March -- April releases are comparatively lackluster.

 

[Scott_Arm]

boring.

Massive drop off for God of War 3. Being single player and relatively short, I think rental, used markets and lending copies probably cannibalized sales. Unfortunate for a good game. Worldwide sales will still be very good and better than the first two.

 

[dobwal]

The comments of 'bring on next gen' generally come from people with low attention spans. Last month was ridiculously strong for March -- April releases are comparatively lackluster.

The lengthening of the gen has more to do with the market expansion and the lack of price penetration than satisfication of the current tech. Would you have happily played around with your PS2, Xbox or GC that you bought in 2000 or 2001 in 2007 or 2008 if the current phenemenom happened last gen instead of this gen.

While visually games have improved since late 2005 its not at the point where it looks a inter-generational difference. And while we have made good inroads in the improvement AI and other gameplay aspect. I don't expect outside of a few titles that the improvement rate will maintain its current pace.

While everyone (with a PS3 at least) is waiting for the last of the big franchises from the previous gen to drop (GT5), I doubt everyone will be satisfied continually looking forward to latest iteration of well known IPs that have already dropped 2-3 times this generation.

You may be satisfied but I don't look forward to playing ME4, Gears4, GT6, GTA7, UC4, COD:Vietnam 2, Halo 5, Fallout 5 or Madden 13 on the current technology, which could very well happen if we don't see a new gen until after all the current console gets in the $100-$150 range. Furthermore, new IPs will only become more and more derivative in nature as there is only so much you can do when you limited to same tech year in and year out.

 

[obonicus]

The lengthening of the gen has more to do with the market expansion and the lack of price penetration than satisfication of the current tech. Would you have happily played around with your PS2, Xbox or GC that you bought in 2000 or 2001 in 2007 or 2008 if the current phenemenom happened last gen instead of this gen.

While visually games have improved since late 2005 its not at the point where it looks a inter-generational difference. And while we have made good inroads in the improvement AI and other gameplay aspect. I don't expect outside of a few titles that the improvement rate will maintain its current pace.

Part of the problem is that PC development has stagnated, relatively. I buy most of my games on PCs these days, and besides looking cleaner, it's not that far from what consoles are doing. Hell, you even see the same sort of lowish-res textures across all versions. There's really not very many 'you could never do this on console tech' games out there to make a convincing argument for next-gen.

You may be satisfied but I don't look forward to playing ME4, Gears4, GT6, GTA7, UC4, COD:Vietnam 2, Halo 5, Fallout 5 or Madden 13 on the current technology, which could very well happen if we don't see a new gen until after all the current console gets in the $100-$150 range. Furthermore, new IPs will only become more and more derivative in nature as there is only so much you can do when you limited to same tech year in and year out.

Actually, isn't there a chance that we'll start to see the cost of the tech become more of a commodity? We've seen very little experimentation in terms of genres so far because of the rising price.

I think this is changing, though; it's only recently that I've started to see a ramp up on HD development in Japan. I'm not a fan of the 'moe' stuff they're producing, but keep in mind that until recently they were still making these for PS2. It's a few years in and just now we're starting to see some odd-ball titles popping up, which is sort of what I had been waiting for.

 

[dobwal]

Part of the problem is that PC development has stagnated, relatively. I buy most of my games on PCs these days, and besides looking cleaner, it's not that far from what consoles are doing. Hell, you even see the same sort of lowish-res textures across all versions. There's really not very many 'you could never do this on console tech' games out there to make a convincing argument for next-gen.

PC development stagnated because its what HD consoles are becoming, big, huge cost intensive full packaged titles with a secondary ecosystem built around smaller, cheaper to develop titles that sell for a few dollars or generate money through ads. The problem with the PC is that is userbase is too small and too pirate friendly to handle games that are costly to develop. Consoles have a much bigger fanbase for their full packaged titles and thus most PC developers have been attracted to console while the PC market serves as an after thought.

Actually, isn't there a chance that we'll start to see the cost of the tech become more of a commodity? We've seen very little experimentation in terms of genres so far because of the rising price.

We gotten little experiementation because over time it has not proven to profitable. Sequels dominate partially because thats what is wanted by the mainstream and partially because pubs lack the understanding to push these tweener titles properly. Games like LBP aren't cost intensive and Media Molecule's mantra is to keep a small development team. Its seems like the pubs sits on two extremes, big full package titles that cost millions or smaller arcade titles that cost a thousands.

I think this is changing, though; it's only recently that I've started to see a ramp up on HD development in Japan. I'm not a fan of the 'moe' stuff they're producing, but keep in mind that until recently they were still making these for PS2. It's a few years in and just now we're starting to see some odd-ball titles popping up, which is sort of what I had been waiting for.

This is not changing its getting worse as japan pubs see less and less oportunity for Western markets which are becoming more and more dominated by highly financed full packaged rehash titles.

But I digress, what we are seeing isn't the fault of technology but the fault of pubs with limited vision.

 

[patsu]

Sorta sad month, especially after the amazing numbers in March.

I am still playing games that launched earlier (yes, including games I bought in March). Give us some time to clear our queue.