NPD June 2010

[Rangers]

Actually the Arcade quickly fell down into the 80's while the slim remained at the top.

Amazon if anything was the reason why I thought the old SKU's werent moving much.

And they weren't sold out, either, where Slim was selling out frequently.

Actually looking at the rankings right now, 360 Slim is #5, PS3 is #7, 250GB PS3 is #51, no other 360 SKU's in the top 100.

Judging by that, it should be nip and tuck between 360/PS3 for 1st place in July, and they will both be ahead of the Wii (#13).

But somehow I doubt that will happen.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Seems like so far this generation for non-wii consoles, Halo 3 and COD:MW series and to a lesser extent COD:WAW have had the strongest legs of any games released.

And not suprisingly for the COD series, it's had longer legs on X360 than PS3 due to the stronger online integration (universal voice chat etc) despite having to pay for online play.

Regards,
SB

 

[djskribbles]

Seems like so far this generation for non-wii consoles, Halo 3 and COD:MW series and to a lesser extent COD:WAW have had the strongest legs of any games released.

And not suprisingly for the COD series, it's had longer legs on X360 than PS3 due to the stronger online integration (universal voice chat etc) despite having to pay for online play.

Regards,
SB

If you mean in terms of units sold, then yeah. Percentage wise, as in the percentage of units sold relative to release (or monthly trends), the PS3 version of COD could be just as high as the 360 version. All we know is that the PS3 version of MW2 didn't sell more than 100k (unless I'm missing something).

 

[Squilliam]

You have to remember that the Slim is still supply limited. So even if the base demand for it is higher you won't see that reflected in the sales just yet. Possibly there were a few people who simply settled for a cheaper original SKU when they found the revision out of stock.

 

[aselto]

But it's the 4th best selling game of the month on the 360, which isn't really a strong leg but more like a column... They've really struck gold with this one. Seems like it's almost a system seller...
Although it also has to be mentioned that it was a relatively small month for software, with the #3 Transformers game selling 132k units.

Oh and Activision was an idiot to wreck Infinity Ward, but that's not new either.

Halo 3 kept appearing in Top 20 charts in Q1 2009 (>100k), almost a year and a half after release. So I would say it's not that surprising, especially considering COD is now a much bigger brand than Halo ever was.

Since both Bungie and ex-IW guys move on to new IPs, it'll be interesting to see how much of their success is related to their understanding of game design and mass market vs one extremely lucky shot (with Halo 1 and COD4).

 

[zed]

But somehow I doubt that will happen.

we'll see in a month but so far for this month I have (higher better, Im using my own algorithm)
wii 2.72
xbox360 2.45
ps3 2.37
so quite close (wii winning at the start of the month) but xbox360 on top at the last data point (i.e, it has upward momentum vs wii), but still half a month to go.
but ATM based I what I see I wouldnt be surprised with NPD july2010 with xbox360 winning followed by wii-ps3 (quite close together)

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The 360 SKU breakdown is pretty interesting. I'd have guessed more like 80% slims.

40% is quite a lot considering it was only for sale for ~one week.

Regards,
SB

 

[flynn]

That's an interesting thought. Although on the flip side, when Westerns (movies not games) were still popular in the 60's and 70's many of them were made by Italians in Italy. I'm not sure if that meant westerns were also popular in Europe or just Italy.

A lot of Westerns were made in Spain during the 60's and that genre was very popular back then (movies with John Wayne et al).

Does Spain still have a lot of ranches?

Sorry, what ranches are you talking about?

 

[Rangers]

40% is quite a lot considering it was only for sale for ~one week.

Regards,
SB

Think it was around 2 weeks. E3 was 11-13 IIRC, NPD covered to July 3 also IIRC. Even allowing a week after E3 for slim to hit shelves, you have almost two weeks.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Halo 3 kept appearing in Top 20 charts in Q1 2009 (>100k), almost a year and a half after release. So I would say it's not that surprising, especially considering COD is now a much bigger brand than Halo ever was.

Halo games have always done that, the somewhat surprising part is that COD isn't an Xbox exclusive franchise.

Since both Bungie and ex-IW guys move on to new IPs, it'll be interesting to see how much of their success is related to their understanding of game design and mass market vs one extremely lucky shot (with Halo 1 and COD4).

It's obviously proficiency in my opinion, if the games weren't good enough the fan base would have moved on to other fields many years ago. In fact one of the more often seen results of Reach and its beta is that they're bringing back people who decided to abandon them after Halo 3.

 

[aselto]

Halo games have always done that, the somewhat surprising part is that COD isn't an Xbox exclusive franchise.

I'm surprised about this exclusive argument. General audience doesn't care about platform exclusivity, they buy games that appeal to them. Apparently COD is a go-to game once you purchase a current gen system.

It's obviously proficiency in my opinion, if the games weren't good enough the fan base would have moved on to other fields many years ago. In fact one of the more often seen results of Reach and its beta is that they're bringing back people who decided to abandon them after Halo 3.

They are super good studios, no doubt about it (although I detest COD's SP campaigns). But we all know that it's really hard to catch mainstream gamer's attention and there are many great games that failed to grab masses, but once you have your name out there it's relatively easy to sustain userbase - look at how many bad iterations it took for NfS before it started losing its steam and even now it's a pretty strong franchise. Now that both Bungie and Respawn start new series, you have towonder if they can be THAT successful again.

 

[Rangers]

COD (multiplatform) may be a bigger brand than Halo, but Halo 3's attach rate was a lot higher than either MW game to 360. Reach's sales will be interesting.

 

[aselto]

I'd expect MW2 360 to exceed Halo 3 sales by now. Though certainly Reach's sales will be interesting, I'll buy my copy on the release day.

 

[Crossbar]

COD (multiplatform) may be a bigger brand than Halo, but Halo 3's attach rate was a lot higher than either MW game to 360. Reach's sales will be interesting.

Indeed, very interesting.
The target demographics of Reach is likely not where MS will put the bulk of it´s marketing money this fall with Kinetic coming up.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Think it was around 2 weeks. E3 was 11-13 IIRC, NPD covered to July 3 also IIRC. Even allowing a week after E3 for slim to hit shelves, you have almost two weeks.

Yup you're right it was the 15th-17th and MS's keynote was the first day I think. So ~2 weeks. 40% (~180k) is still quite a bit for 2 weeks. And with shortages also.

Halo games have always done that, the somewhat surprising part is that COD isn't an Xbox exclusive franchise.

It's interesting that it performs like a platform exclusive on X360 (both MW and WAW had much stronger legs on X360, while PS3 petered out fairly quickly).

I wonder if there's just more disdain for it on PS3? Looking around forums you see far more PS3 users disparaging the game than you do X360 users.

Regards,
SB

 

[djskribbles]

Define legs. Again, what proof do you have that the PS3 version petered away quicker?

edit:
NPD Nov. (release date): 4.2m vs 1.87m
NPD Dec.: 1.63m vs 1.12m
NPD Jan: 326.7k vs 259k
NPD Feb: 314.3k vs 252k

I couldn't find any data beyond Feb., other than rankings. The 360 version made the top 15 in June whereas the PS3 version didn't, but again, all we know is the PS3 version didn't sell more than 100k and the 360 version sold ~100k-132k.

To me, all things considered, as far as 'legs', the PS3 version's legs are just as long.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Define legs. Again, what proof do you have that the PS3 version petered away quicker?

edit:
NPD Nov. (release date): 4.2m vs 1.87m
NPD Dec.: 1.63m vs 1.12m
NPD Jan: 326.7k vs 259k
NPD Feb: 314.3k vs 252k

I couldn't find any data beyond Feb., other than rankings. The 360 version made the top 15 in June whereas the PS3 version didn't, but again, all we know is the PS3 version didn't sell more than 100k and the 360 version sold ~100k-132k.

To me, all things considered, as far as 'legs', the PS3 version's legs are just as long.

You did see how I mentioned MW and WaW right? Not MW2? It's still too early to say how MW2 will end up playing out.

Yes, I'm talking a year or so from release when MW I believe was still selling between 50-100k on X360 but 10k or less on PS3. WaW saw a similar progression although with a slightly more compressed timeline. The numbers for Top40 occasionally pop up as do numbers for particularly interesting titles.

Regards,
SB

 

[djskribbles]

I don't remember seeing these charts, so I guess I'll take your word for it.

In that case, to be fair, those were the pre-PS3 slim days when PS3 hardware sales were relatively low in the US.

 

[Tap In]

whoa, how did I miss this?

good month for the Slim

 

[Rangers]

IGN published the top 10 by individual platform and top 5 combined platform software sales of the first half of the year (Jan-Jun) though NPD didn't allow them to publish the units.

Top Ten Individual Platform Sales (Jan-Jun)

1. New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Wii
2. Pokemon SoulSilver Version - Nintendo DS
3. Red Dead Redemption - Xbox 360
4. God of War III - PlayStation 3
5. Wii Fit Plus w/Balance Board - Wii
6. Wii Sports Resort w/ Wii Motion Plus - Wii
7. Pokemon HeartGold Version - Nintendo DS
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Xbox 360
9. Just Dance - Wii
10. Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Wii

Top Five Combined Platform Sales (Jan-Jun)

1. Red Dead Redemption (360,PS3)
2. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2* (360,PS3)
4. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (360,PS3)
5. Wii Fit Plus* (Wii)