US VG market sets record, up 6%, 600k Xbox360s sold in NA to date.

[Nicked]

The NPD Group today announced that annual 2005 U.S. retail sales of video games, which includes console and portable hardware, software and accessories (but not PC), saw sales of over $10.5 billion. This represents a six percent increase over the $9.9 billion generated in 2004 and it exceeds the previous industry record of $10.3 billion from 2002

"Sales set a new record thanks to the strong portable game market, which offset the declines in the console market. For the second year in a row, sales of portable software titles broke the $1 billion mark, generating $1.4 billion in the U.S. Portable game hardware, software and accessory categories saw respective dollar increases of 96 percent, 42 percent and 88 percent over 2004," states the NPD.

Top 10 software:

The top 10 video games (ranked by units sold) for 2005 are as follows:


1. Madden NFL 2006—PS2—EA
2. Pokemon Emerald—GBA—Nintendo
3. Gran Turismo 4—PS2—Sony Computer Ent.
4. Madden NFL 2006—Xbox—EA
5. NCAA Football 06—PS2—EA
6. Star Wars: Battlefront II—PS2—LucasArts
7. MVP Baseball 2005—PS2—EA
8. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith—PS2—LucasArts
9. NBA Live 06—PS2—EA
10. Lego Star Wars—PS2—Eidos

Source

Oh and the Xbox360 info.

Research firm NPD Group announced Friday that Microsoft has sold 600,000 Xbox 360 consoles in the U.S. since the device's launch in November. Despite holiday shipments falling below analyst expectations, Microsoft still expects to sell between 4.5 and 5.5 million Xbox 360s by the end of June.

Source

~300k for December is pretty bad. But demand is still great IMO. Production is obviously not.

Should have full hardware figures soon I guess.

Edit; thats meant to read "US to date" in the title.

 

[AlNom]

ah... I wonder how many were sold in Canada.

 

[Nicked]

ah... I wonder how many were sold in Canada.

~60k probably if in line with the US


Its good to see the industry isn't as dead as some would make it out to be, what with record sales and all. Though three new platform releases may have helped that along.

 

[Nicked]

Retailers sold just 281,441 Xbox 360 consoles in the quarter, a total that was far fewer than the number of original Xboxes or PlayStation 2s sold in the quarter. It also was fewer than the number of units of the device retailers sold last month in the nine days after it launched.

Source.

Well, there is NPDs Xbox360 number. Puts it at...~610k in the US to date.

Sony and Nintendo are doing a little jig right about now, I suspect.

 

[one]

Hmm, what's the cause of discrepancy
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9988/Xbox-360-Sales-Miss-Estimates-13M-Units-Sold-So-Far/

Xbox 360 Sales Miss Estimates, 1.3M Units Sold So Far
By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
Jan. 4th, 2006 3:29 am
Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund has revealed in a recent report that Microsoft probably sold 1.3 million Xbox 360 units for the quarter, missing analysts’ estimates and Goldman Sachs’ own estimate of 1.8 million units. According to Sherlund, sales may have reached 900,000 units in North America, 300,000 in Europe and 100,000 in Asia.

 

[Nicked]

Hmm, what's the cause of discrepancy
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9988/Xbox-360-Sales-Miss-Estimates-13M-Units-Sold-So-Far/

One is an analyst, the other is a retail tracking company.
I know who my vote is on (hint, its not Goldman Sachs ).

 

[one]

Now it may be interesting if you compare it with the original Xbox numbers (anyone?)

 

[NavNucST3]

Hmm, what's the cause of discrepancy
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9988/Xbox-360-Sales-Miss-Estimates-13M-Units-Sold-So-Far/

What discrepancy, one says US, the other says NA. Which going by both sets of numbers means that appx. 300k were sold in Canada.

 

[scooby_dooby]

"NPD Group numbers include two-thirds of retail outlets in the United States."
http://www.betanews.com/article/600000_Xbox_360s_Sold_Since_Launch/1137195988#c164350

2/3rds? Maybe that's the source of the 900k units claim.

 

[Powderkeg]

What discrepancy, one says US, the other says NA. Which going by both sets of numbers means that appx. 300k were sold in Canada.

300k sold in Canada....

Maybe in a YEAR.

They sold a whole 31,000 or so 360's in Canada between launch and December 1. At most they've doubled that since then.

 

[Powderkeg]

"NPD Group numbers include two-thirds of retail outlets in the United States."
http://www.betanews.com/article/600000_Xbox_360s_Sold_Since_Launch/1137195988#c164350

2/3rds? Maybe that's the source of the 900k units claim.

No, NPD POLLS 2/3rds of the retail outlets and estimates the rest based on the results.

 

[expletive]

~300k for December is pretty bad. But demand is still great IMO. Production is obviously not.

Should have full hardware figures soon I guess.

Edit; thats meant to read "US to date" in the title.

Seeing as they've been (and still are) supply limited, i'm not sure what your point is?

 

[AlNom]

300k sold in Canada....

Maybe in a YEAR.

They sold a whole 31,000 or so 360's in Canada between launch and December 1. At most they've doubled that since then.

That's it? That must be due to supply issues though...right?

 

[Powderkeg]

That's it? That must be due to supply issues though...right?

No, it's due to the fact that the total population of Canada is less than the population of California.

 

[AlNom]

While that may be true, we do happen to like the Xbox brand, and it is fact that all stores sold out. I find your comments to be uncalled for.

 

[Powderkeg]

While that may be true, we do happen to like the Xbox brand, and it is fact that all stores sold out. I find your comments to be uncalled for.

Well damn, I guess sue me for speaking the truth.

Canada's population is about 1/10th of the US, so it should be expected that their console sales would also be about 1/10th the US. If you have a problem with that maybe you should move to a country which doesn't give you an inferiority complex.

 

[joebloggs]

Well damn, I guess sue me for speaking the truth.

Canada's population is about 1/10th of the US, so it should be expected that their console sales would also be about 1/10th the US. If you have a problem with that maybe you should move to a country which doesn't give you an inferiority complex.

I LOL'd.

Am I a bad person?

 

[mckmas8808]

The Xbox sold over 400,000 units for the month of December. The PS2 sold 1.5 million. And both the DS and PSP sold over a million units a piece.

 

[AlNom]

Well damn, I guess sue me for speaking the truth.

Canada's population is about 1/10th of the US, so it should be expected that their console sales would also be about 1/10th the US. If you have a problem with that maybe you should move to a country which doesn't give you an inferiority complex.

Just because a population is a particular fraction of another does not mean the sales will be scaled accordingly. That depends on the units shipped.

I have no dispute over the fact of the population. Read my post again. "While that may be true," etc. Perhaps you are being overly aggressive for no reason? Not sure why you're getting upset...

 

[Nicked]

Seeing as they've been (and still are) supply limited, i'm not sure what your point is?

As I said demand is still great, but this situation is in no way negligible for MS. Being outsold by every other system including handhelds is a bad thing. Only shipping 600k both at launch and at christmas is bad. Long lasting effects? Probably not.

Basically, the points I conclude are the following:
1) They have a serious problem somewhere in the manufacturing or shipping phases of the console (or both). If it is a yield issue, its more serious than we've been told, and more serious than all parties expected (analysts, publishers and co.).

2) They missed an opportunity to capitalise on both the launch hysteria and a holiday season.

3) It has had the most understocked launch of any major console in recent history (certainly pre-PlayStation days).

So what could this mean?
- Further delays in getting the hardware to stores may happen as they struggle to fix the problem.
- Demand could slow as launch fades and consumers start to get upset at continually not being able to purchase a system.
- Hype for PS3 and Revolution could further slow demand as gamers take a "wait and see" approach.

Or they might just be able to fix the problem, ship the units and still sell out. Who knows. Its just never been this bad .

Off that topic.....

PlayStation 2 has sold amazingly. Over 1.5million units in its 5th year on the market, at a (comparitively) high pricepoint. PSOne sold alot of its consoles at $99. Sony still has that for next-year.
If they had've dropped the price to $99 as people wanted they would've just lost $75million...and not slowed down the (undershipped) Xbox360 a bit.

2/3rds? Maybe that's the source of the 900k units claim.

Nah, NPD doesn't have access to Walmart and some other retailer numbers, but they do cooperate with them and do alot of research in order to fairly accurately extrapolate the numbers. Its never going to be exact, but its never going to be off by 50% (or 10%, for that matter). Plus, it could go both ways (100% accurate number could be a little higher or lower).

Complete 2005 figures:

Handheld unit sales and market share numbers for 2005

Nintendo GameBoy Advance 41 percent 4.26 million
Sony PlayStation Portable 35 percent 3.63 million
Nintendo DS 23.5 percent 2.43 million

Console unit sales and market share numbers for 2005

Sony PlayStation 2 5.51 million 55 percent
Microsoft Xbox 2.40 million 24 percent
Nintendo GameCube 1.56 million 15 percent
Microsoft Xbox 360 607,343 6 percent