NPD October 2010

Its not inline with the install base thats for sure. Its a good example, along with wii, showing software sales not growing in a linear fashion with user base. Either the number of active 'buying' users is much closer between the two than the install base would indicate, or PS3 users are buying a lot more software on a per user basis.

 

Piracy, RROD, users buying multiple 360's (buying a Slim simply to replace a previous working 360), and relative age of userbase (PS3 one year newer, newer owners buy more software) all could play a part.

A gaffer worked out the software $ for October, via some blurbs in that industry gamer article. I will say "Road" is a sales beast at GAF, so it's not some random poster. 360 won quite handily, on the order of 1.5:1 over ps3. Then again, I'm not 100% that was accurate. The IG article was worded oddly. But if so it was (October):

If the gaffer was accurate, it raises more conflicts imo, because if 360 won oct big, it would have had to win sep even much bigger with halo reach, which means the rest of the year might have been almost even to match gamasutras figures, which would seems unlikely. Then again, new hardware drives software, and we're basically coasting off 1.5 years of the Ps3 slim effect, while only 4 months of the 360 slim effect, which means software may take some time to catch up to the 360 new hardware bounce for slim.

There's also the fact I'm not entirely sure of gamasutras charts accuracy. It says "estimated". I wonder how the author is estimating? Is he not getting the figures direct from NPD, in which case they wouldn't say estimate?

I've seen past (years? months in past years? past months this year?) figures that showed 360 ahead of Ps3 on the order of 2-1, very dominantly, in USA software too. I wish I had that reference. But I think console gen to date, in the USA, 360 has a really huge lead, again talking in the area of 2:1.

For Europe software sales, there's this

Also I wonder how Kinect will change the software picture the rest of the year.

 

Multiply these charts by average retail price of games on each system.

 

The last-gen systems, PS2 and Wii, are on their way out, but the current gen is growing too slowly. $99 Arcades, where are you?

 

no where to be seen with MS aproaching thier best year in the NA market. I expect perhaps in the fall or late summer of next year to see $150/250 prices for the 360



Also wow the psp software sales are an epic failure. I'm surprised sony is moving foward with a new psp.

 

That's because you've got goofy, biased blinders on around here. I'm guessing the PSP (Sony's first handheld) was more successful than the Xbox (Microsoft's first console) but you wouldn't have been surprised when Microsoft announced they were moving forward with the Xbox 360. You were probably giving thanks.

 

I guess that is one way to respond.

A better response would be: The PSP did extremely well in Japan and relatively well in Europe. It didn't "beat" the NDS, but it had extremely strong sales. The PSP was weak in the US and had a number of blunders (UMD, PSP Go, failed to make movement into the smartphone market, touch screen, etc) but the negativity generated in NA for the PSP skews the general success that is the PSP. Sony has a lot of room for improvement with the PSP2 and has a tougher road ahead due to Nintendo, Apple, and Google carving up the portal devise market but the PSP gives Sony a solid entry into the mobile market.

 

Also you need to take into account that for 3rd party publishers, PSP software revenue is now generally outperforming NDS software revenue, at least for Japanese pubs. I haven't looked at NDS/PSP breakdowns for western pubs.

Regards,
SB