August Console Sales Numbers (post 179)

[MJ4H]

[Big Fo]

August's numbers will be out Thursday, here's a preview by Michael Pachter:

Originally Posted by Pachter

Sales are expected to be driven by EA's Madden NFL 09 (PS3, 360, Wii, PSP, PS2, DS), Microsoft's Too Human (360), Nintendo's Mario Super Sluggers (Wii) and continued sales of Namco Bandai's Soul Calibur IV and Nintendo's Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii.

As for hardware, Pachter sees the Wii selling 550K units, well over double the PS3's predicted 225K. He also forecasts the Xbox 360 and PSP at 200K each and the PS2 at 150K. The popular DS should match its console cousin at 550K as well.

gamasutra.com for rest of article

EA Sports' Moore Calls $133.5 Million Month For Madden 'Vindication'

Originally Posted by Peter Moore and gamasutra.com

Madden NFL 09 has generated $133.5 million in retail sales since its August 12 launch, according to Electronic Arts' own estimates ahead of NPD figures.

The figure represents a 6 percent increase over last year's Madden performance, and EA also says this year's incarnation has earned the franchise's highest critical rating in three years.

"In the month of August we may be bigger than a certain Eastern European gangster," EA Sports head Peter Moore tells Gamasutra, pleased to see Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 and Madden NFL 09 take the first and second spots for the Wii format, respectively, on Metacritic.

Moreover, Moore says Madden acts as an industry bellwether, so good news for it is good news for all. "The industry always feels proud when we can hold a title up against other things like movie releases," he says.

And hold up it does -- according to EA's numbers, Madden NFL 09 sales outperformed the month's top blockbuster films, including Tropic Thunder ($83.9 million), Mamma Mia! ($56.4 million), and Pineapple Express ($79.9 million).

"We're still the red-headed stepchild; we're still not mainstream entertainment," says Moore -- so this contrast between Madden and film sales is "vindication for our industry."

rest of article

Madden selling well = videogames are validated. So awesome.

Next month I'd be more interested to hear how Head Coach sold but I doubt it will make the charts.

[Subby]

Are there any figures that show the typical production costs (including marketing) for a game like Madden?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

The point is - the 360 hardware sucks, and we as consumers know it. That being said, the people who hate Bill Gates/Windows or sleep next to their PS3s each night have to deal with the fact that a console with a 68% attrition rate won this round. I know it hurts, but deal with it. Frankly, it doesn't effect you as much as you think it does.

Reggie says "Enjoy second place, Microsoft (and third place, Sony)"

SI

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I guess it is the old saying, sometimes you can get more flies with honey than with a sledgehammer..

Not to be nitpicky, but... (link)

SI

[Big Fo]

Microsoft: Xbox 360 sales surge on price cut

Microsoft said today that Xbox 360 sales rose significantly following the price cuts announced by the company last week. The company said retailers are reporting that sales of the video-game console increased more than 100 percent over the weekend, compared with the prior weekend.

Of course, it remains to be seen if those bumps will be temporary or lasting. The idea behind the price cuts was to strengthen the company's position going into the upcoming holidays, said David Dennis, a Microsoft spokesman. Following the price cut, the Xbox 360 Arcade model is selling at six times the previous rate, Dennis said. The new $199 price of that model is $50 cheaper than Nintendo's market-leading Wii game console.

Microsoft declined to provide more specific sales data.

Because of the timing, the effect of the Xbox 360 price cut won't be evident in U.S. console sales figures for August, scheduled to be released Thursday afternoon by the NPD Group market research firm. Benefiting in part from some blockbuster games, the PlayStation 3 has topped the Xbox 360 in the U.S. sales rankings in each of the previous three months.

seattlepi.com

That would put them near Wii territory. Of course, it's only the first month after the price drop, as the article says...

[MJ4H]

Well it's official. Today I have become a PS3 fanboy. See ya later, Nintendo!

Singstar Abba: ABBA Invades SingStar

[Kodos]

Of course, what they don't mention is that Madden sells for $60 a pop (or more if you get the Collecter's edition), compared to movies that go for $10 or less usually.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

Well it's official. Today I have become a PS3 fanboy. See ya later, Nintendo!

Singstar Abba: ABBA Invades SingStar

Mamma MIA!
Just one look and I can hear a bell ring!
One more look and I forget everything!

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Microsoft: Xbox 360 sales surge on price cut

That would put them near Wii territory. Of course, it's only the first month after the price drop, as the article says...

The PS3 had a similar sales surge with their price cut. This really shouldn't be all that surprising. The true measure of how effective the price cut will be will be over the holidays. Assuming no Sony price cut, they will hold a large advantage over the PS3 this holiday season from a price perspective.

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

The PS3 had a similar sales surge with their price cut. This really shouldn't be all that surprising. The true measure of how effective the price cut will be will be over the holidays. Assuming no Sony price cut, they will hold a large advantage over the PS3 this holiday season from a price perspective.

Yup. Actually the ~100% increase looks even smaller if you consider that sales probably declined the week before as news of the price drop had been out for weeks.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Not to be nitpicky, but... (link)

SI

I am familiar with that saying. My version of it is a common variation of it that you hear from time to time. Basically meaning the same thing as the original saying but changing it up a bit to get the same type of point across. No idea where it came from or who popularized it though.

[SirFozzie]

Here's the August #'s

August NPD Numbers

Wii: 453,000
Xbox 360: 195,200
PS3: 185,400
PS 2: 144,100

This is all pre price cut, so this is bad news for Sony. They're already behind, and their closest competitor just undercut them ANOTHER $100.

[fantom1979]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Here's the August #'s

August NPD Numbers

Wii: 453,000
Xbox 360: 195,200
PS3: 185,400
PS 2: 144,100

This is all pre price cut, so this is bad news for Sony. They're already behind, and their closest competitor just undercut them ANOTHER $100.

Yes, but, how many of those 195,200 Xbox 360's were defective???

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

[wade moore]

MBBF will enjoy this post.

I've defended the xbox360 a bit throughout these threads, probably not as strong as some others, but I have.

Now that my 360 appears to be a complete brick I'm pretty pissed off.

I even went through the trouble last november of hunting and making sure I got a falcon chip (or whatever it was called). Did that do me any good? Apparently not.

I don't even play my system much. Now it freezes constantly - it even froze with the tray out and trying to play some cheesy freebie game.

I guess I'll have to call them and get a new one shipped out. Just ridiculous for something I paid $400 for to not even make it a year.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Here's the August #'s

August NPD Numbers

Wii: 453,000
Xbox 360: 195,200
PS3: 185,400
PS 2: 144,100

This is all pre price cut, so this is bad news for Sony. They're already behind, and their closest competitor just undercut them ANOTHER $100.

I don't think the August numbers on their own are the big concern. 10K isn't that big of a difference. The bigger concerns are two-fold.......

1. Both the 360 and PS3 aren't selling well at all in a month where Madden was released. In the past, the Madden coattails have provided a much bigger boost. It appears that effect is no longer applicable. The Wii even sold less than 500K, which is saying something given their sales numbers in previous months.

2. There's no question that the 360 has the price advantage, but that hasn't always resulted in bigger sales boosts for the 360 over the course of this lifecycle. With that said, I don't think there's any question that a price cut would be a much better move than more HDD space. Sony has apparantly chosen the latter and I'm not sure it's a good move.

[Mustang]

Is there really a need for 80G on the PS3 rather than just stick with the 60G? Seems like alot of overkill as I only use about 11G on the 360, but maybe I'm on the way low end of the spectrum for storage use.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Is there really a need for 80G on the PS3 rather than just stick with the 60G? Seems like alot of overkill as I only use about 11G on the 360, but maybe I'm on the way low end of the spectrum for storage use.

Remember that the PS3 has much larger game sizes for download. You can download Head Coach 09, Warhawk, and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue onto your hard drive for play, which hasn't been an option on the 360 until recently. The 360 allows you to rip a game to the HDD, but large downloads of full games still aren't available (yet). Even some of the other games like PAIN can take up a pretty good size chunk of space.

My point on the HDD is that I'm not sure that you need to have large drives as standard. I can buy a 200-250 GB HDD for the PS3 for under $100. Why not just let the users that really need that HDD space upgrade and keep the smaller 40-60 GB HDD in the standard model to help with pricing?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

As long as we're discussing HDD's, here's a great deal for PS3 owners who want to upgrade their HDD. 320 GB HDD for $80.

SEAGATE Momentus 5400.5 ST9320320AS 320GB SATA 5400 RPM 8MB Buffer Mobile Hard Drive Bulk at ZipZoomfly

Deals like this are the reason I wonder why Sony even bothers giving an extra 40 GB in HDD space for $100 more. If you're going to buy a PS3, just buy the 40 GB version for $399 and spend $80 for the HDD upgrade. You'll be way ahead in the end.

[Mustang]

Thanks. Didn't realize that you could get full games. I could see how that would take up the space... although, for me, I'd rather see a smaller drive and a lower price as I doubt I would d/l a full game and only own it digitally on a console.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Thanks. Didn't realize that you could get full games. I could see how that would take up the space... although, for me, I'd rather see a smaller drive and a lower price as I doubt I would d/l a full game and only own it digitally on a console.

I'm the same way as you. I'd rather have the full games on disk, but there's evidently some idiots that want the digital version or they wouldn't be offering it.

I have been somewhat surprised how many DL games I've bought at the smaller price points. I hate the retro and old games that they just rehash, but there's some good new games from companies like Pixel Junk that I have bought.

[Ryan S]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Is there really a need for 80G on the PS3 rather than just stick with the 60G? Seems like alot of overkill as I only use about 11G on the 360, but maybe I'm on the way low end of the spectrum for storage use.

Because every PS3 sold has a hard drive, game developers are more likely to take advantage of it. If you make a 360 game which requires installation to the HD, you can't sell the game to Xbox arcade owners.

[Ryan S]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Here's the August #'s

August NPD Numbers

Wii: 453,000
Xbox 360: 195,200
PS3: 185,400
PS 2: 144,100

This is all pre price cut, so this is bad news for Sony. They're already behind, and their closest competitor just undercut them ANOTHER $100.

I don't know what happened in the US, but I expect Sony's numbers to be terrible in the UK as most people will have waited for the 80gb version to be released in the final days of the month.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Looks like the idiot at Microsoft who decided to use his name in the article detailing the RROD issues was fired by MS. Not surprising, as they have strict NDA agreements in place...........

Microsoft Has Robert Delaware Dismissed for Comments on 360 Defects

[Big Fo]

He didn't even notice he got fired because he was too busy playing games on his 360.

I like the guy's quote though.

Despite the forthcoming legal battle, Delaware himself is surprisingly cavalier, saying, "I don't regret it. I'll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on." Delaware adds, "It feels good. It was the moral thing to do."

Good luck, MS can probably afford better representation than him.

I'll paste in the software numbers, lifetime sales, PR, and other misc. stuff after work. Now that we're all used to Nintendomination these threads don't have as many pages so for this month I'll just change the July in the thread title (back) to August.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

I'll paste in the software numbers, lifetime sales, PR, and other misc. stuff after work. Now that we're all used to Nintendomination these threads don't have as many pages so for this month I'll just change the July in the thread title (back) to August.

Honestly, it has little to do with the numbers. August and early September are extremely slow from a release/console sales perspective. The chatter will build quite a bit once we get into October.

[Big Fo]

Hardware---Aug.-----July----Lifetime

DS ........... 518k (608k) 21.9m
Wii ........... 453k (555k) 11.9m
PSP........... 253k (222k) 12.5m
Xbox 360... 192k (205k) 10.9m
PS3........... 185k (225k) 5.3m
PS2 ...........144k (155k)

Software

360 MADDEN NFL 09 Aug-08 ........................ .... 1.0m
PS3 MADDEN NFL 09 Aug-08 ............................. .. 643K
PS2 MADDEN NFL 09 Aug-08 .............................. 424.5K
WII WII FIT May-08 ..................... ..................... 394.9K
WII MARIO KART Apr-08 ............................ ....... 328.7K
WII WII PLAY W/ REMOTE Feb-07 ........................ 200.2K
360 SOUL CALIBUR IV Jul-08 ................................ 174K
360 TOO HUMAN Aug-08 ..................................... 168.2K
WII MADDEN NFL 09 Aug-08 ................................ 115.8K
NDS GUITAR HERO: ON TOUR Jun-08 10 .............. 111.2K

Other August sales:

PS3 SOUL CALIBUR IV ..... 110K
360 Tales of Vesperia .......... 33k
360 Tiger Woods 09 ...............56k (highest selling version)
Madden 09 (All platforms) ....... 2.3m (2% increase over Madden 08)


Various lifetime sales:

Rough LTDs:

WII MARIO KART WII: ........ 2.7 million
WII WII FIT W/BALANCE .... 1.8 million
NDS GUITAR HERO: ON TOUR: 845K
PS3 SOUL CALIBUR IV: ......... 265K
360 SOUL CALIBUR IV: .......... 395K
NCAA 09 ................. ............. 460k (more than PS3 and Wii versions combined according to Microsoft PR)

Industry totals:

* Video games - $1.08 billion (+9%)
* Video games hardware - $394.5 million (+3%)
* Video games software - $550.7 million (+13%)
* Video game accessories - $137.3 million (+13%)

Sony PR - here
Microsoft PR - here
Nintendo PR - here

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Xbox 360 price cuts coming in the UK........

GDN: UK Xbox 360 price cuts confirmed by Microsoft

Olevia is releasing a Blu-ray player to compete with Sharp's version of the BR player. Both will be out at the $299 price point. I'm beginning to wonder if these $299 BR players are one of the big reasons that Sony would like to keep the PS3 at the $399 price point through the holidays. A $299 price point for the PS3 would sell like hotcakes and leave these BR players sitting on the shelves collecting dust. An interesting quandry.........

Blu-ray.com - Olevia Blu-ray Player Coming in October

[stevew]

No, the player is based off of the archetecture of the Sharp player. Anyways, I thought Olevia was bankrupt and virtually out of buisiness. They must have found some financing somewhere.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Good news for those of you who are Halo fans. Ryan Payton, who recently moved back to the States after completing work on Metal Gear Solid 4, is now reportedly the new lead for the new Halo game under development. This guy did a world of good in reshaping the MGS4 game and will likely help improve the Halo franchise in much the same way.

Halo: Chronicles: New Halo Helmed By MGS4 Producer

[DaddyTorgo]

hey console-gurus: my sister just gave my brother her old hand-me-down xbox (b/c she and her fiance got a 360).

Mother likely won't let lil bro get any wargames or stuff, so sportsgames wise i have a couple questions:

what better: madden 2007 or 2008? ncaa football 2007 or 2008? which recent year of march madness best? He's already got 2007 hockey covered.

disclaimer: my lil bro is not the fan of statistical accuracy that i am, he'd be more about the gameplay (as long as there weren't ridiculous game-stopping bugs).

Also, are the 09 sports games coming out just on 360 or still for standard xbox too? (i'm sure i could google and ask, but this is an active thread so i'm asking)

[Eaglesfan27]

Madden 08 on the Xbox is better from what I've heard, but it's not much better and 07 is cheaper.

I'm not sure about NCAA Football. I think 08 had bad pursuit angles on the Xbox, so he might want to go with 07.

Don't get March Madness. Get College Hoops, it is a much better game.

A few sports games (such as Madden) are still coming out for the Xbox, but not many at all and they are getting harder to find.

[gstelmack]

Find an old copy of ESPN NFL 2k5 for him for the Xbox.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Find an old copy of ESPN NFL 2k5 for him for the Xbox.

+1. College Hoops suggestion by EF27 is also a very good one.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Find an old copy of ESPN NFL 2k5 for him for the Xbox.

You can get this for like a dollar or two at places like EB games.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah i think i saw it (college hoops) at the gamestop at lunchtime actually. i may head down there after work and rummage through the bin and see what they've got.

I know for a fact I saw madden 07+08 and ncaa 07+08 and march madness. Pretty sure I saw college hoops and espn nfl2k5 (definately saw a couple espn logos). If not I'll look online or just bide my time.

Frankly the beauty of it is being a generation behind the stuff is cheap and easy to find. And it's always fun to play anyways - just last night I drafted a madden 05 team against him and we were cracking jokes about all the players -- aka "sweet...i'm taking 23 year old asante samuel!" "sweet! LT when he was 26!" etc. But I also know he's the kind of kid who'd appreciate having 2008 or 2009 (his birthday is in like three weeks - oooh mine too!, maybe i'll get him madden 09 *shrug*), to have the most recent rookies, and to have at least one up-to-date game to play with his buddies.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

But I also know he's the kind of kid who'd appreciate having 2008 or 2009 (his birthday is in like three weeks - oooh mine too!, maybe i'll get him madden 09 *shrug*), to have the most recent rookies, and to have at least one up-to-date game to play with his buddies.

I think that was the point of suggesting the College Hoops 2K game and NFL 2K5. Pretty sure that both of those games have online communities that still play those games and create updated roster sets that you can download on your PC and load to your Xbox.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

I think that was the point of suggesting the College Hoops 2K game and NFL 2K5. Pretty sure that both of those games have online communities that still play those games and create updated roster sets that you can download on your PC and load to your Xbox.

well that's fuckin awesome!

[SirFozzie]

Interesting news from Japan. It's only one week.. but.. 360 outsells PS3 by 3.5 to 1.

Breaking: Holy Snot! Xbox 360 Tops Home Console Sales In Japan

For the sales week September 8th to September 14th. (note: The 360 was out of stock, and re-released with a price cut on the 11th, so this is not even a full week!)

• Xbox 360: 28,681 units
• Wii: 27,057 units
• PLAYSTATON 3: 8,050 units

[sterlingice]

Hell, it outsold the Wii.

Were there any games released for it over there?

SI

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

well that's fuckin awesome!

Well, my point in suggesting 2k5 is that it's the best-playing football game ever released pretty much.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Hell, it outsold the Wii.

Were there any games released for it over there?

SI

Tales of Vesperia is the big one, if I'm correct

[SirFozzie]

Oh, by the way, if you're on Guitar Hero burnout ALREADY, with On Tour, World Tour, Aerosmith, and Metallica (rumored by end of year).. guess what? By 2010, they've announced they want to release THREE TIMES AS MANY Guitar Hero Games a year as they do now.

So much for not Tony Hawk-ing the Guitar Hero Cash Cow.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Interesting news from Japan. It's only one week.. but.. 360 outsells PS3 by 3.5 to 1.

Honestly, beating the PS3 wasn't all that surprising as they had pent up demand that had been waiting for over a month (they only sold 800 or so for the last couple of weeks) and the PS3 has the major releases coming next month. What should be surprising is that demand + the price drop caused a sales week that even surpassed Wii sales. It obviously won't last past this week, but it's definitely a start.

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Tales of Vesperia is the big one, if I'm correct

Vesperia came out in Japan two weeks ago IIRC, this week's big 360 release was Infinite Undiscovery (86k sold).

Pokemon Platinum sold 967k in its first two days on the market.

Sony should try and produce or moneyhat some RPGs to appeal to Japanese gamers, their first party lineup is way too shooter heavy (Killzone 2, MAG, SOCOM, Resistance 2... White Knight Story is the only PS3 RPG coming soon in Japan). 360 still has The Last Remnant and Star Ocean 4 coming within the next few months, maybe the 360 will start selling more than 2-3k p/w on a consistent basis.

[MikeVic]

Could someone answer me whether an LCD TV with a 5ms response time (60Hz refresh) would be suitable for playing games, such as NHL 09 and the like? Or would there be a blur?

Thanks.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Well, my point in suggesting 2k5 is that it's the best-playing football game ever released pretty much.

I was trying ESPN 2k5 on my 360 and Madden 2006 on my PS3 with my new LCD TV last night, and both looked like ass. The Falcon's field looked like something out of 1993 in 2k5. I tried monkeying with the settings on the TV and on the consoles (and in game), but I never found a combo that looked okay (like as good as they did on my regular-definition TV). Does anyone know the proper settings to make last gen games look okay on a LCD TV?


Also, I have to say I'm unimpressed with Madden 2009 for the 360. It LOOKS great, but I don't like the gameplay. And I hate how the camera comes in from an angle and then straightens out before each play. Tom Hammond (whatever his name is) sounds like a freaking robot.

[SirFozzie]

Wow. This is not good news for Sony, if you consider their reason for including the Blu-Ray drive was to try to win that war..

Bad signs for Blu-ray: Free discs, cheap players, and declining market share | The Industry Standard

Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending September 14th, 2008 - Engadget HD

Apparently Blu-Ray's share of the DVD market is DECLINING, not increasing. At one point, Sony's projections were that Blue-Ray would have 50% of the market by the end of this year.. that it would sell just as much as regular DVD's. Instead.. they only have 8% of the market. So they're trying freepack in movies with subscriptions to Wired Magazine and sub-$200 players to try to spur the market.

[Big Fo]

The prices are too high and the selection is weak compared to DVDs. Sure the prices aren't as bad online but they're missing out on those impluse buys of the shelves. $30 for a movie? GTFO. I've been renting them for this reason.

[Big Fo]

From this week's IGN Nintendo Voice Chat podcast, the highly-acclaimed DS RPG The World Ends With You has sold 270,000 copies since its April release, exceeding expectations and selling better in the United States than in Japan.

It's always nice to see good games sell, especially when it's a new IP to boot. I mean I don't mind Square-Enix remakes, I've bought Final Fantasy IV and Dragon Quest IV already this year, and will buy Chrono Trigger DS in November but I'm glad SE has reasons to keep putting out good, original games as well.