US: Has the Wii Onslaught Against HD Market Share Stalled?

US - Has the Wii reached its zenith of potential against the combined forces of Microsoft's 360 and Sony's PS3? Or is this just another lull in the cycle similar to the summer of 2007?

Will the Wii eventually pass both of them combined in the US or has it run out of time? As always, we'll know just a little more next month. Leave your thoughts in the comments section if you think you know the answers to any of these profound questions.

Click to Enlarge:

Nintendo Propels Industry to Record Month

US - Following record sales of 2 million Wii consoles in November, Nintendo sales led the way to a new industry-wide record in December: $5 billion in revenue, the largest single month in video game history.

According to NPD, December sales were up 9 percent year-over-year, and sales for 2008 were up 19 percent.

Nintendo’s handheld, the DS, sold 3.04 million units, almost as many as the Wii and Xbox 360 combined (2.15 million and 1.44 million, respectively). Regarding software, the Wii’s console bundle, Wii Play and the Wii remote, sold 1.46 million units in December alone.

December 2008 Sales

1. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 1.46 million

2. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch/Activision, Xbox 360) - 1.33 million

3. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 999,000

4. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 979,000

5. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Neversoft/Activision, Wii) - 850,000

6. Gears of War 2 (Epic Games/Microsoft, Xbox 360) - 745,000

7. Left 4 Dead (Valve/EA, Xbox 360) - 629,000

8. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, NDS) - 540,000

9. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch/Activision, PS3) - 533,000

10. Animal Crossing: City Folk (Nintendo, Wii) - 497,000

2008 Full Year Sales

1. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 5.28 million

2. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 5.00 million

3. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 4.53 million

4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo, Wii) - 4.17 million

5. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar/Take-Two, Xbox 360) - 3.29 million

6. Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch/Activision, Xbox 360) - 2.75 million

7. Gears of War 2 (Epic Games/Microsoft, Xbox 360) - 2.31 million

8. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar/Take-Two, PS3) - 1.89 million

9. Madden NFL 09 (EA Tiburon/EA, Xbox 360) - 1.87 million

10. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, NDS) - 1.65 million

(Charts from gamasutra.com)

Sony Opens 2009 With a Bang: Dissidia and Monster Hunter Take Top Two Spots

Japan - First Week of the year Media Create results are in, and Sony opens with a whopper: Dissidia, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, White Knight Chronicles, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Spec III, and Gundam Musou 2 are all in the top ten, representing over 159 thousand units sold.

Nintendo answers back with its own heavyweights, Rhythm Tengoku Gold (now at 1.5 million sold), Wii Fit, the ever-growing phenomenon of Girl's Mode, Kirby Super Star Ultra, and Mario Kart also all reaching the top 10 again this week.

Is Sony back, or is this a short-lived planetary-alignment of big releases?

Software
01. [PSP] Dissidia Final Fantasy (Square Enix) 49,000 / 818,000
02. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP the Best) (Capcom) 34,000 / 305,000
03. [NDS] Rhythm Tengoku Gold (Nintendo) 33,000 / 1,568,000
04. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) 29,000 / 3,155,000
05. [NDS] Wagamama Fashion: Girl's Mode (Nintendo) 29000 / 644,000
06. [PS3] White Knight Chronicles (SCE) 26000 / 304,000
07. [PS3] Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Spec III (SCE) 25,000 / 292,000
08. [PS2] Gundam Musou 2 (Limted Edition) (Namco Bandai) 25,000 / 225000
09. [NDS] Kirby Super Star Ultra (Nintendo) 23,000 / 1,021,000
10. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) 21,000 / 2,155,000

11. [NDS] Momotaro Dentetsu 20th Anniversary (Hudson)
12. [WII] Animal Crossing: City Folk (Nintendo)
13. [NDS] Phantasy Star Zero (SEGA)
14. [NDS] Pokémon Platinum (Pokémon)
15. [PS3] Gundam Musou 2 (Limted Edition) (Namco Bandai)
16. [NDS] Power Pro Kun Pocket 11 (Konami)
17. [PSP] Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin (KOEI)
18. [NDS] Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel (Level 5)
19. [WII] Wii Sports (Nintendo)
20. [WII] Play on Wii: Pikmin (Nintendo)
21. [PS3] Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (Konami)
22. [NDS] Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo)
23. [NDS] Tongariboushi and the 365 Days of Magic (Konami)
24. [NDS] Taiko Drum Master 2: The Seven Island Adventure (Namco Bandai)
25. [WII] Taiko no Tatsujin Wii (Namco Bandai)
26. [NDS] Tales of Hearts: Anime Movie Edition (Namco Bandai)
27. [WII] Karaoke Joysound Wii (Hudson)
28. [PSP] Harvest Moon: Sugar Village (Marvelous)
29. [NDS] Mario Kart DS (Nintendo)
30. [PSP] Kenka Banchou 3: Conquer the Entire Nation (Spike)

PSP Loses Further Ground to DS; Now Behind in 2008 Totals

Japan - After putting together its best year ever in 2008, the PSP is now losing the yearly hardware total battle in the eleventh hour.

The PSP outsold the DS almost every week from February until August, but the release of the DSi has the Sony handheld back on its heels. The strong move by PSP came after the release of Monster Hunter 2G, which helped it take back around 5% market share in 2008, from 26.1% to where it sits now at 31.06%.

Now the PSP has been outsold seven weeks in a row and sits just behind the DS in 2008 hardware sales (3,428k vs 3,447k).

As Sony is dealing with tough numbers in nearly every territory, is this another blow to the giant of last-gen? Or should Sony be content that it has any marke share in the hanheld arena? With the release of Dissidia for the PSP next week, we're certainly look at a close finish to 2008, a defining year for the PSP that may just be a little bittersweet in the end.

Wii Cuts Deeply into HD Lead; Will 360 and PS3 Lose Grip on 3rd Party Exclusives?

US - Nintendo continued its console dominance with a shocking sales total of 2.04 million systems sold in November. At the same time, the Wii made major gains against the combined force of HD systems 360 and PS3.

After a full year on sale in November 2007, it appeared the HD systems would fend off the sensational sales of the Wii with landmark sales of their own.

As both the 360 and the PS3 shared an extremely common library outside of several marquis exclusives, one could observe the strategy of 3rd parties favoring the higher-powered systems with multi-platform hardcore titles while pushing sub-standard shovelware onto the Wii audience.

And you could see why, too. The audience for the HD systems is clearly an older set than what many presume the Mario Kart audience is, and most 3rd parties are still marketing primarily to the older group.

Beyond that, the combined total of the 360 and PS3 in the US outpaced the Wii by almost five and half million as late as March of this year (60% market share). With the difference in audience, HD system's sales lead, and more viable options for after-the-purchase revenue streams (DLC), 3rd parties really haven't had a choice.

This month does not erase everything, but it certainly will raise the eyebrows of 3rd parties that haven't yet taken the Wii audience seriously. In the past eight months the Wii has lowered the HD lead by two-and-a-quarter million units, a million of that in the last month alone. How 3rd parties respond to that, or if they do at all, remains to be seen.

Questions for consumption down below.

(click to enlarge)

Questions for Consumption
1. Will Wii LTD ever pass the combined total of the HD systems in the US? When? Does it matter?

2. Will Japanese 3rd party exclusives like Monster Hunter 3 and Dragon Quest X significantly alter the race in the United States?

3. Wii Western Publishers see the significant Japanese exclusives and return volley with their own?

4. Will the certain addition of jRPG-enthusiasts from MH3 and DQX mean even more jRPGs for the Wii?

5. Considering the current Western 3rd party struggles on the Wii as well as the acknowledged difference in audience, is the Wii a viable option for 3rd parties to publish traditional harder-core games?

360 Gains In Japan a Mirage

Media Create Sales: 11/17 - 11/24 (Consoles)

Japan - In the same week that the Wii has crossed 7 million units sold, the 360 (long since written off in Japan by sales enthusiasts, and correctly, I might add) is once again playing as a potential spoiler against Sony's PS3.

One look at the Weekly Console Sales Chart (line, 2nd chart down) will show the gains 360 has made at PS3's expense. A closer look at market share charts is more revealing; the Weekly Console Market Share (line, 4th chart down) shows a once sub-5% weekly take has climbed above 20% nine of the last eleven weeks.

For a larger perspective, please observe the Total Console Market Share Chart (line, 6th down) and the Year on Year Console YTD Chart (line, last chart in this post) and one will observe that the 360 has really only gained back the ground it lost over the past year and only now hovers where it was in December 2007 (7.51%).

More importantly, one will notice that the 360 has basically sold one-for-one with itself from 2007 with a slight gain. While a 60k gain from the previous year isn't anything to sneeze at for a console that regularly posted 3.5k weeks this very year, it's really peanuts compared to Wii's 550k negative difference and PS3's 135k negative difference, especially considering they outsold the 360 by 500k and 2 million units respectively.

Analysis
So what are we really seeing? First, we're seeing 360's concurrent RPG releases make an impact on weekly sales at the same time the Wii and the PS3 are seeing year-on-year slowdowns.

Does this mean the 360 will suddenly take control of the weekly charts and take a commanding lead any time soon from the PS3? Doubtful. A close look at YOY charts across the board shows that the 360, outside of big releases in August and September, is only slightly elevated from the previous year's effort.

The true question at hand is what we're seeing from the PS3. The Wii is mirroring its YOY chart at a slight reduction (-10k this week), and the 360 is at a slight increase from 2007 (+8k), but last year at this time the PS3 was selling 40-50 thousand units during this period. That creates a dropoff from 2007 of twenty to thirty thousand units.

Is the PS3 suffering more from the economy than the Wii or the 360? Could it only be price? Does it matter and does any of that justify stagnant sales during a heightened-sales season?*

As always, we'll know just a little more next week.

* they don't celebrate Christmas, goofball.

October 2008 NPD Results - LBP Outsold by Mario Kart

NPD results are as follows. Stay right here for the latest in NPD Charts and graphs. That PS3 number looks BAD.

Hardware
Hardware Unit Sales
Oct-08
PlayStation 2 136K
PlayStation 3 190K
PSP 193K
Xbox 360 371K
Wii 803K
Nintendo DS 491K



Platform Charts
(click to enlarge for all charts)



Overall Charts


Top 10 Software
Publisher Release Date Rank # Units
360 FABLE II MICROSOFT (CORP) Oct-08 1 790K
WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD NINTENDO OF AMERICA May-08 2 487K
360 FALLOUT 3 BETHESDA SOFTWORKS Oct-08 3 375K
WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL NINTENDO OF AMERICA Apr-08 4 290K
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA Feb-07 5 282K
360 SAINTS ROW 2 THQ (CORP) Oct-08 6 270K
PS3 SOCOM: U.S. NAVY SEALS CONFRONTATION SONY (CORP) Oct-08 7 231K
PS3 LITTLE BIG PLANET SONY (CORP) Oct-08 8 215K
360 NBA 2K9 TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE (CORP) Oct-08 9 202K
360 DEAD SPACE ELECTRONIC ARTS Oct-08 10 193K


Industry Sales
Dollar Sales Oct-07 Oct-08 CHG YTD Oct 07 YTD Oct 08 CHG
Video Games $1.12B $1.31B 18% $10.50B $13.13B 25%
Video Games Hardware $470.47M $494.74M 5% $4.13B $4.72B 14%
Video Games Software $514.60M $696.79M 35% $4.98B $6.76B 36%
Video Game Accessories $130.81M $120.19 -8% $1.40B $1.65B 18%

Sony Q2 Results: Games Division Loses $379

From Sony's Consolidated Financial Results for the Second Quarter Ended September 30, 2008:

Game
(Billions of yen, millions of U.S. dollars)
Second quarter ended September 30

2007 2008 Change in yen 2008
Sales and operating revenue ¥243.4 ¥268.5 +10.3% $2,582
Operating income (loss) (96.7) (39.5) - (379)

Unless otherwise specified, all amounts are on a U.S. GAAP basis.

Sales increased 10.3% year-on-year (a 15% increase on a local currency basis) to ¥268.5 billion ($2,582 million).

Hardware: Overall hardware sales increased as a result of an increase in sales of PS3 and PSP. Sales of PlayStation®2 (“PS2”) decreased year-on-year.

Software: Despite an increase in PS3 and PSP software sales, overall software sales decreased as a result of a decrease in PS2 software sales.

An operating loss of ¥39.5 billion ($379 million) was reported, an improvement of ¥57.2 billion year-on-year.

The decrease in operating loss in the current quarter was primarily due to PS3 hardware cost reductions and increased sales of PS3 software, as well as strong sales of PSP hardware.

Worldwide hardware unit sales (increase/decrease year-on-year):
→ PS2: 2.50 million units (a decrease of 0.78 million units)
→ PSP: 3.18 million units (an increase of 0.60 million units)
→ PS3: 2.43 million units (an increase of 1.12 million units)

Worldwide software unit sales (increase/decrease year-on-year):
→ PS2: 23.1 million units (a decrease of 14.9 million units)
→ PSP: 11.8 million units (a decrease of 0.8 million units)
→ PS3: 21.1 million units (an increase of 10.7 million units)

Inventory, as of September 30, 2008, was ¥243.2 billion ($2,338 million), which represents a ¥4.6 billion decrease compared with the level as of September 30, 2007. Inventory increased by ¥83.7 billion, or 52.5%, compared with the level as of June 30, 2008, due to increased inventory of PS3 and PSP hardware for the holiday sales season.

Sony: ROE is like the PS3 (Ambitious and Unrealistic)

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has reiterated his company's performance targets for the year ending March 2011, meaning that the company’s previously ambitious target of a 10% return on equity remains intact.


Read the report @ EDGE.

Sony Cuts Profit Forecast by 57%

Sony has cited its games division as one of the key areas to expect a fall. “We expect our results to be lower than the July forecast with operating income decreasing by approximately ¥130b, mainly within the Electronics and the Game segments,” the company said.

Multiple reports in Edge see the PS3 leaking sales in key areas such as Japan, the US and Europe. Earlier today we reported Famitsu’s estimates that the PS3 sold just 4,800 units in Japan for the week ending Oct 17.

Read the entire article HERE.

August 2008 NPD Results

Hardware Unit Sales
PlayStation 3 185.4K
PlayStation Portable 253.0K
Playstation 2 144.1K
Xbox 360 195.2K
Wii 453.0K
Nintendo DS 518.3K


Top 10 SKU's August 2008
(includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)
Publisher Release Date Rank # Units

360 MADDEN NFL 09 ELECTRONIC ARTS Aug-08 1 1.0mm
PS3 MADDEN NFL 09 ELECTRONIC ARTS Aug-08 2 643K
PS2 MADDEN NFL 09 ELECTRONIC ARTS Aug-08 3 424.5K
WII WII FIT NINTENDO OF AMERICA May-08 4 394.9K
WII MARIO KART NINTENDO OF AMERICA Apr-08 5 328.7K
WII WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA Feb-07 6 200.2K
360 SOUL CALIBUR IV NAMCO BANDAI GAMES OF AMERICA Jul-08 7 174K
360 TOO HUMAN MICROSOFT Aug-08 8 168.2K
WII MADDEN NFL 09 ELECTRONIC ARTS Aug-08 9 115.8K
NDS GUITAR HERO: ON TOUR ACTIVISION BLIZZARD Jun-08 10 111.2K