NPD September 2007

[Rangers]

It is a shame however, that such a lackluster title imo as Halo 3 is driving high 360 sales. I wonder what, if any, long term damage that could do?

Probably not too much, as many "average users" are probably satisfied with the game. Probably even claim they "love it" without knowing what they're saying

 

[thatdude90210]

Is this the first month any home system has outsold the Wii?

No, the 360 did it during the last xmas season. But that was because of Wii shortages, though.

 

[AlphaWolf]

No, the 360 did it during the last xmas season. But that was because of Wii shortages, though.

You could technically still make that claim today, for whatever reason Nintendo seems to be quite happy keeping the Wii (at least somewhat) supply limited in NA. Of course if they hadn't been supply limited it doesn't necessarily mean they would have sold more units over the course of the year.

 

[RobertR1]

It is a shame however, that such a lackluster title imo as Halo 3 is driving high 360 sales. I wonder what, if any, long term damage that could do?

Probably not too much, as many "average users" are probably satisfied with the game. Probably even claim they "love it" without knowing what they're saying

Seriously..... operation downplay in full effect!

I expected Halo3 sales around 2.7-2.8 3.3 is very high.

If we follow the trend of the PS3, that with a price cut the sales spike and then come back down, it's understandable to credit Halo3 for the high spike in sales. I think they'll do well in Nov and Dec but if they can ride the Halo wave through Oct, they'll be quite happy will releasing Halo3 early, as the startegy will
have paid off.

Don't get me wrong, Halo3 will still be a big seller in Nov and Dec. With 3.3 million users kids in school talking about Halo, the general buzz will go on for a while, thus giving Halo3 decent legs.

 

[PARANOiA]

Good point - in fact Nin have been accused of trying to spark a "wii-fever", with the mentality of "if you see one, you bettter buy it!"

 

[dlm]

You will be able to see it in charts.
But not in public ones.
What can you do in public charts is just try to estimate it by using: Halo sales, hardware sales, attach ratio, other games sales.

It's still impossible to know without knowing the intend of the purchasers. No sales data will show this positively.

No doubt that Halo caused higher hardware sales, but considering 3.3mln of Halo 3 units sold, the "spike" in sales is just tiny.

By what standard do you consider it tiny?

The only thing that this proves is that people who bought the 360 had a high likelihood of wanting to purchase Halo upon its release.

We still haven't established the size of the userbase who is willing to purchase a 360 *after* the release of Halo 3. We have established only that in the 2 weeks following Halo 3's release, there were probably a couple hundred thousand people willing to purchase a 360 in that time frame at the currently available price points.


As a broader question, do we have any data on the impact of sales of consoles for other "system selling" games released for previous consoles? If we saw significantly larger spikes relative to game sales and installed base across these types of games, that can be stacked against Halo's system selling power to an extent. However, the price point munges things up a fair bit.

I don't have the data, but I'd be surprised if the story was much different anywhere. My expectation would be that even a "system selling" game would have its impact over a span of several months, or potentially longer, which makes gathering meaningful data very difficult.

 

[dlm]

Good point - in fact Nin have been accused of trying to spark a "wii-fever", with the mentality of "if you see one, you bettter buy it!"

The odd thing is... they're not all that hard to find around here (east-side of Seattle). You'll never see one at game retail, but I see them at places like Target and Fred Meyer on a pretty regular basis.

 

[psorcerer]

It's still impossible to know without knowing the intend of the purchasers. No sales data will show this positively.

You can do good educated guesses by pairing per store hw/sw sales. You wouldn't know the "intent" but at least you will know how much people bought Halo "bundled" with X360.

By what standard do you consider it tiny?

My own.

I don't have the data, but I'd be surprised if the story was much different anywhere. My expectation would be that even a "system selling" game would have its impact over a span of several months, or potentially longer, which makes gathering meaningful data very difficult.

Don't think so, the games sales are dropping very fast after initial release, so even if they have some "prolonged" impact the actual numbers will be negligible.

 

[dlm]

Don't think so, the games sales are dropping very fast after initial release, so even if they have some "prolonged" impact the actual numbers will be negligible.

Except this tends to not be the case for the really landmark games for most systems.

Halo 2 is a great example. Its lifetime sales were more than double its first month sales, IIRC. We see trends like this for games like GTA, FF, Mario and the like all the time.

There is a certain class of games that when a system gets cheap enough, a significant number of people are willing to go back and play. Halo as a franchise has traditionally been part of this group.

The reason most games fall into obscurity after initial release is that the publishers stop manufacturing them inside of a month or two. By the time the price hits mass market point, the game couldn't be purchased even by people who want to.

 

[Teasy]

Some of these games are old, some are multiplatform, some are ok and others uncertain how good they will be. Mario Galaxy and Zak & Wiki stand out though but probably thats it.

I am still waiting for big titles to come on it (with a couple exceptions). I dont feel that these titles are the ones that sell Wii's by the bucket loads.

Wii is already selling by the bucket load, all that's required are games to keep people interested and help keep sales high. Two of those games are already released on another system, but they're still good games that add to Wii's game library. A few of them are multiplatform, but again that doesn't stop them from being good games or helping to keep people interested/wanting a Wii. Seven of them are exclusives ranging from AAA to good.

Weapon of awesomeness?

What in the world does Halo 3/360 have to do with Wii? For Halo 3 to effect Wii sales, these systems would need to compete on the same plane of existence... and at the moment, they don't.

You're right, unfortunately for MS and 360, they don't.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Except this tends to not be the case for the really landmark games for most systems.

Halo 2 is a great example. Its lifetime sales were more than double its first month sales, IIRC. We see trends like this for games like GTA, FF, Mario and the like all the time.

There is a certain class of games that when a system gets cheap enough, a significant number of people are willing to go back and play. Halo as a franchise has traditionally been part of this group.

The reason most games fall into obscurity after initial release is that the publishers stop manufacturing them inside of a month or two. By the time the price hits mass market point, the game couldn't be purchased even by people who want to.

Yep, and keep in mind halo 2 launched in Nov. Halo3 is likely to have more staying power as it still has xmas sales to maintain it.

 

[iceberg187]

Microsoft PR

Xbox 360 Tops Console Sales in September and outsells PS3 5:1
o Xbox 360 sales built upon its growth from last month, showing a 50 percent increase for the month of September selling an average of 105,600 consoles per week. Total sales were more than 528,000 Xbox 360 consoles sold, compared to 501,000 for Wii and 119,000 for PS3.

o PS3 sales posted an average weekly decline of 27 percent.

Xbox 360 software revenue at retail outsold PS3's software portfolio 8:1 and Wii's 4:1, selling 3 times more than both platforms combined.
o For the month of September according to NPD, Xbox 360 software represented 74 percent of total software sales for the next generation market compared to 17 percent for Wii and 9 percent for PS3. Even without the sales of "Halo 3" the Xbox 360 portfolio outsold the PS3 portfolio 2:1.

Additionally, Xbox 360 is home to the best-selling games with the top-rated next-generation titles.
o According to the world-wide authority in entertainment reviews, Metacritic, Xbox 360 has 80 titles with a Metacritic review score of 80 or higher compared to just 31 for PS3 and 11 for Wii.

o Newly released title "The Orange Box" (Valve) and the highly anticipated title "Mass Effect" (Microsoft Game Studios) have both generated rankings of 97 and higher according to Metacritic. And not to forget "BioShock" (2KGames) which remains one of the year's highest rated games.

Xbox 360 held six spots in the Top Ten Console Games, led by initial sales of "Halo 3" Xbox 360
o In its first two weeks, the three editions of "Halo 3" placed #1, 2 and 3 overall for console title sales - for a total of more than $225 million in sales in the U.S. with 3.3 million units. Average unit prices were $69 per game. The $130 "Halo 3: Legendary Edition" alone sold twice as many units as the top title for PS3 "Heavenly Sword" (SCE); the helmet is mightier than the sword.

o Proving that Xbox 360 is the new home for sports gamers, "Madden NFL '08" (EA) on Xbox 360 was again the leading next gen platform with 173,000 units sold, compared to the PS3 at 62,000 and Wii at 58,000. To date, "Madden NFL '08" has sold 1.1 million units on Xbox 360, 87 percent more than other next-gen platforms combined.

o Xbox 360 exclusive "BioShock" has sold 641,000 units through the end of September and remains to be on track to sell more than 1 million units. While "Halo 3" and "Madden NFL '08" have led the way as the first of a string of titles that are expected to sell more than 1 million units between now and the end of the year.

o Rounding out the top titles for Xbox 360, "Skate" (EA) came in at #6. The Xbox 360 version of the innovative titles outsold the PS3 version 6:1.

 

[RobertR1]

Sony NPD release: http://kotaku.com/gaming/npd/npd-numbers-the-sony-take-312655.php
"PS3 continues to maintain an overall increase in sales, with 119K units sold at retail for the month. Also, with the new $399 40GB PLAYSTATION 3 SKU hitting store shelves on November 2nd, a new $499 price point for the 80GB model effective immediately, and highly anticipated titles available this holiday, such as Racthet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, Warhawk, Heavenly Sword, Folklore, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, the PS3 is poised for very strong performance through the holiday season and into 2008."

 

[Teasy]

Microsoft PR

Xbox 360 Tops Console Sales in September and outsells PS3 5:1

Wow, MS in big fat lier scandal, who would have guessed

 

[RobertR1]

"The $130 "Halo 3: Legendary Edition" alone sold twice as many units as the top title for PS3 "Heavenly Sword" (SCE); the helmet is mightier than the sword."

You gotta give all 3 credit. No holding back any chance they get!

 

[AntShaw]

"The $130 "Halo 3: Legendary Edition" alone sold twice as many units as the top title for PS3 "Heavenly Sword" (SCE); the helmet is mightier than the sword."

You gotta give all 3 credit. No holding back any chance they get!

Thats pretty wild to even think about. I keep trying to grasp it.

Halo 3 Legendary @ $130 sold greater then 400k and Heavenly Sword was @ $60 and sold 140k.

For as great a game Sword is, that is AMAZING. It just doesnt add up. At this point, Bungie and MS should just unleash more Legendary kits on the market, and sell what they can. The market is there.

WOW.

Just in case you missed it the first time:
Halo 3 Legendary @ $130 sold greater then 400k and Heavenly Sword was @ $60 and sold 140k.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Just in case you missed it the first time:
Halo 3 Legendary @ $130 sold greater then 400k and Heavenly Sword was @ $60 and sold 140k.

While true, keep in mind that the install base in NA is something like 4.5 million wii, 6.7m 360, and 1.8 million ps3.

 

[AntShaw]

Thats fine. We are still talking about a unit that retails at $129 against a unit that retails at $60.

With Sword being one of the few AAA titles on the PS3, it is still mind boggling.

 

[Rangers]

You can not say that, because you don't have the "per week" numbers (Japanese public charts are so much better).

Microsoft stated 360 hardware sale "nearly tripled" the week of Halo 3. That stat was in fact the basis for my 500k prediction. Indicating they sold about 210,000 that week.

One big question for me going forward is, just how supply constrained is the Wii going forward? Is it capped at 400k/month? Or are they holding back supply for November and December?

I remember they had a knock down drag out debate on GAF about this, some peple thought it was incredibly stupid to think Nintendo would stockpile for the holidays (why pay storage costs on consoles that could be sold now?), others thought not stockpiling would be incredibly stupid and that they obviously would. Nothing was ever settled, of course.

 

[Teasy]

I think companies have to stock pile for Christmas. Its a time of year when people have to give a gift. If one gift isn't available they feel pressure to buy something else similar. Someone going out to buy a Wii in December can easily turn in to someone buying a 360 if no Wii's are available. Where as at other times of the year people are far more likely to wait for availability, if they can't find a Wii in July, you can just wait until August ect