US stats collator, the NPD Group, has released its figures for the video game industry and its November 2009 sales. Despite the month being the second best for revenues in history, sales were down by 7.6% year-on-year.
NPD's Anita Frazier points that "Based on seasonality the industry looks like it will reach $20 billion for the year, which means December would have to be up over last year by 11 percent. Impossible? I don’t think so.
"More positive economic news combined with ‘frugal fatigue’ could positively impact industry sales during these last weeks of the holiday season. Breaking even seems more out of reach."
Frazier also sounded a note of caution for December, "In order to break even to last year, December sales would have to be up 36 percent over December 2008."
In terms of hardware (last month's in brackets):
Home Console
Wii: 1.26 million (507k)
Xbox 360: 819.5k (250k)
PlayStation 3: 710.4k (321k)
PlayStation 2: 203.1k (118k)
Handheld
Nintendo DS: 1.70 million (458k)
Sony PSP: 293.9k (175k)
NPD's Anita Frazier commented, "While there has been a lot of focus on Wii sales as compared to last year, the system was still the best-selling console system by a margin of 54%. At this same point in the PS2 lifecycle, the PS2 was down in unit sales by 23 percent over the previous year, but as history has shown, it continues to have a great deal of life left in it. So focusing on a comparison to Wii’s stellar 2008 performance masks the reality of just how well this system is selling.
"The PS3 realized the greatest increase over last year’s November sales and had its third best month in unit sales ever, coming in just under Decembers ‘07 and ‘08."
In terms of software:
1 - Modern Warfare 2 - 360 - 4.20m
2 - Modern Warfare 2 - PS3 - 1.87m
3 - New Super Mario Bros Wii - Wii – 1.39m
4 - Assassin’s Creed II - 360 - 794.7k
5 - Left 4 Dead 2 - 360) -744.0k
6 - Wii Sports Resort - Wii – 720.2k
7 - Wii Fit Plus - Wii – 679.0k
8 - Assassin’s Creed II - PS3 - 448.4k
9 - Dragon Age: Origins - 360 - 362.1k
10 - Mario Kart Wii - Wii - 315.0k
Anita Frazier commented, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has achieved the top spot for first-month sales of any game at the title level.
"Halo 3 previously held the spot when it sold 3.3 million units in September ‘07 in 12 days at retail. MW2 bested Halo 3’s daily sales rate by 16% in its 19 days at retail in November.
"While this year’s top-selling item bested last year’s by 283 percent, it couldn’t make up for softness elsewhere. The top 50 games this year sold 5 percent less units than did the top 50 last year."
NPD's Anita Frazier points that "Based on seasonality the industry looks like it will reach $20 billion for the year, which means December would have to be up over last year by 11 percent. Impossible? I don’t think so.
"More positive economic news combined with ‘frugal fatigue’ could positively impact industry sales during these last weeks of the holiday season. Breaking even seems more out of reach."
Frazier also sounded a note of caution for December, "In order to break even to last year, December sales would have to be up 36 percent over December 2008."
In terms of hardware (last month's in brackets):
Home Console
Wii: 1.26 million (507k)
Xbox 360: 819.5k (250k)
PlayStation 3: 710.4k (321k)
PlayStation 2: 203.1k (118k)
Handheld
Nintendo DS: 1.70 million (458k)
Sony PSP: 293.9k (175k)
NPD's Anita Frazier commented, "While there has been a lot of focus on Wii sales as compared to last year, the system was still the best-selling console system by a margin of 54%. At this same point in the PS2 lifecycle, the PS2 was down in unit sales by 23 percent over the previous year, but as history has shown, it continues to have a great deal of life left in it. So focusing on a comparison to Wii’s stellar 2008 performance masks the reality of just how well this system is selling.
"The PS3 realized the greatest increase over last year’s November sales and had its third best month in unit sales ever, coming in just under Decembers ‘07 and ‘08."
In terms of software:
1 - Modern Warfare 2 - 360 - 4.20m
2 - Modern Warfare 2 - PS3 - 1.87m
3 - New Super Mario Bros Wii - Wii – 1.39m
4 - Assassin’s Creed II - 360 - 794.7k
5 - Left 4 Dead 2 - 360) -744.0k
6 - Wii Sports Resort - Wii – 720.2k
7 - Wii Fit Plus - Wii – 679.0k
8 - Assassin’s Creed II - PS3 - 448.4k
9 - Dragon Age: Origins - 360 - 362.1k
10 - Mario Kart Wii - Wii - 315.0k
Anita Frazier commented, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has achieved the top spot for first-month sales of any game at the title level.
"Halo 3 previously held the spot when it sold 3.3 million units in September ‘07 in 12 days at retail. MW2 bested Halo 3’s daily sales rate by 16% in its 19 days at retail in November.
"While this year’s top-selling item bested last year’s by 283 percent, it couldn’t make up for softness elsewhere. The top 50 games this year sold 5 percent less units than did the top 50 last year."
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Comments
DoctorDee 12 Dec 2009 08:04
1/1
"Halo 3 previously held the spot when it sold 3.3 million units in September ‘07 in 12 days at retail. MW2 bested Halo 3’s daily sales rate by 16% in its 19 days at retail in November.
This is one of the most contrived and irrelevant statistics I have ever seen. The only reasons anyone would have ever said this is to either protect Halo's reputation (or reduce Activision's), or because they spend all day thinking about statistics so much and in such esoteric ways that they have become inured to such a bizarre expression of them, and failed to consider how apparently deceptive it could be.
Comparing "daily sales rate" of one title against another for different numbers of days is fundamentally unfair. It's like comparing Car A's rate of acceleration 0-60 against Car B's rate of acceleration 0-100. Car B may trounce Car A over 0-60, but still come out worst in terms of rate of acceleration over the differing sample period.
The only FAIR representation of this statistic would have been Halo's daily sales rate in its first 12 (or 19) days against MW2's daily sales rate over 12 (or 19) days.
Because sales curves tend towards zero, it will ALWAYS be possible to find a period whereby MW2's daily sales rate is equal to (or lower than) that of Halo. All you have to do is increase the number of days over which you consider MW2's daily sales rate, compared to the period for which you consider Halo's. In reality, you may have to take one game over three years, and the other over one year... but that does not change the principle.
In this example, they considered MW2's descending curve (delta daily sales rate) for a longer period than Halo's curve, thereby taking into account the possibility of greater descent, either as a percentage or in actual numbers. Not a fair statistic.
In real terms, the correct statistic: MW2's fist 12 days versus Halo's first 12 days may not differ greatly when expressed as a percentage, but that does not change the fact that the statistic expressed as it was is meaningless.
