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July 2008 NPD Article (Edge Online)

J

jvm

Gamasutra.
I have a few additional sales figures to share with you in this month's NPD article for Edge Online.

First, a link to the piece itself: July 2008 NPD In-Depth at Edge Online

Next, what the real numbers people might care about. Sorry they're not more interesting (i.e. MGS4 or some other game):

PS2 NCAA Football 2009: 140-145K
Wii NCAA Football 2009: 40-45K

(Sorry, but I don't feel comfortable giving out the more precise numbers I got from NPD. If someone else gets them, I'll let them give them out.)

The upshot that I point out in the piece is that NCAA Football sales on consoles were flat -- without the addition of the Wii. With the Wii, there is a 5% growth in unit, year-on-year. The PS3 is now at last year's PS2 level, the PS2 at approximately last year's PS3 level, and the Xbox 360 was almost exactly the same as last year.

There is also a breakdown of how the software dollars were divided up among Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo platforms:
2r47km1.jpg

Thanks to Microsoft and Sony for helping make that one happen.

There is also a pair of YTD 2007 and YTD 2008 graphs showing how the horse race has shifted since last year this time.

(Trivia: Did you notice that Sony said $608.7M in hardware revenue in July 2008? If you're paying attention, you'll notice how that number makes no sense whatsoever. Thanks to JJS for helping me double check that it is some kind of error. Bonus points to the person who figures out what it really means...I have no idea!)

I also try to get through some numbers on the third party software sales brouhaha. If someone can do a better job getting at Sony's YTD third party sales, please speak up.

Finally, you may remember NPD's Games Segmentation 2008 report that was covered in the press earlier this week. Well, I got two additional numbers that might be of interest to people here.

The line that interested me most in the press release was "10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3". I wondered what the results were for the other platforms. Here you go:

10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3
18% of PS2 owners also own an Xbox 360
19% of PS2 owners also own a Wii

I go on to point out that this isn't a perfect picture of where PS2 owners are going. No doubt some (perhaps many or most?) are trading in their PS2, or selling it outright, when they upgrade to a PS3, at least when backward compatibility was available and important to that consumer.

As always, constructive criticism is welcome. If I made an error, kindly let me know and I'll get it fixed ASAP. I may not be around all afternoon, but I should be around this evening. Thanks, guys.

In case you'd like to review previous threads:
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December and all of 2007
November 2007
October 2007
 
The PS3/360 software breakdown is clearly the big story here, thanks JVM.

It appears the PS3 moved more software in the US than the 360 did.
 
Opiate said:
The PS3/360 software breakdown is clearly the big story here, thanks JVM.

It appears the PS3 moved more software in the US than the 360 did.
Click to expand...
If you mean the graph above, that's PS3+PS2+PSP vs. Xbox 360. Not so much a win for the PS3...

If you mean the software figures from the third party sales, that's not how I remember it...Microsoft has moved something in the high teens of millions and Sony is just around 10-11 million. Something around there. (In 2008.)
 
Opiate said:
The PS3/360 software breakdown is clearly the big story here, thanks JVM.

It appears the PS3 moved more software in the US than the 360 did.
Click to expand...
Are you missing the fact that Sony have PS2 and PSP software sales to factor in to that chart?
Sony's three systems garnered 31% of the revenue while the Xbox 360 alone generated 22%.
Click to expand...
 
I really liked this part

What Microsoft is downplaying, of course, is that their competitors – both Sony and Nintendo – have very strong first-party and second-party development organizations. While Microsoft has been acquiring developers and nurturing second-party relationships with others, it simply does not yet have the in-house muscle that Sony and Nintendo can muster. For this reason, Microsoft will almost always look better when one measures simply by third party software sales.
Click to expand...

Thats something I never see mentioned, you always see "third parties sell better on the 360" but people seem to ignore the fact that Microsoft 1st party is so poor (Halo series removed because its their gem) compared to the PS3 and Wii. I mean when you have virtually no 1st party of course your 3rd party is going to be amazing.

Just thought it was a nice perspective to see, and something Microsoft should be aiming to correct with the remaining lifespan of the 360 and into their next system
 
jvm said:
If you mean the graph above, that's PS3+PS2+PSP vs. Xbox 360. Not so much a win for the PS3...)
Click to expand...

Ah, my mistake. Yes, I had misconstrued the information to mean PS3 only. Sorry.
 
jvm said:
PS2 NCAA Football 2009: 140-145K
Click to expand...

Edge_article said:
And here's where it gets interesting: the combined NCAA Football sales on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PS2 dropped from last 2007 to 2008. It's not much – around 6000 units – but the best we could say of those platforms is that NCAA Football sales were flat year-on-year.
Click to expand...

Great! I'll use that to figure out what value to use for PS2 in the software prediction thread results. Thanks, jvm and NPD/David Riley! :)

Nice writeup, from what I've seen quickly browsing it. I'll read it more in-depth later. :)
 
Aye, I also appreciate your articles. The lack of communication between NPD and the enthusiasts, in contrast to other markets (Chart track, Media Create, Famitsu etc.), is quite poor, so having you as the go-between, with some analysis, is a treat.

Keep it up!
 
I always enjoy your writeups jvm. Sadly, there's no way any of this is good news for people who don't like the experience Wii/DS games offer.
 
10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3
18% of PS2 owners also own an Xbox 360
19% of PS2 owners also own a Wii
Click to expand...

I think this should put to rest the myth amongst Sony fanboys that PS2 converts will eventually save the PS3.
 
markatisu said:
I really liked this part



Thats something I never see mentioned, you always see "third parties sell better on the 360" but people seem to ignore the fact that Microsoft 1st party is so poor (Halo series removed because its their gem) compared to the PS3 and Wii. I mean when you have virtually no 1st party of course your 3rd party is going to be amazing.

Just thought it was a nice perspective to see, and something Microsoft should be aiming to correct with the remaining lifespan of the 360 and into their next system
Click to expand...


I'm not so sure, when you look at past generations the platform with the most 3rd party support was the victor each and every time. I think MS is purposely focusing on 3rd parties in the hopes of duplicating that success.

It seems to be working to some extent (the most 3rd party exclusive games, the most exclusive DLC, etc..) are on 360.
 
jvm said:
The line that interested me most in the press release was "10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3". I wondered what the results were for the other platforms. Here you go:

10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3
18% of PS2 owners also own an Xbox 360
19% of PS2 owners also own a Wii
Click to expand...

fan betrayal confirmed
 
PSGames said:
I'm not so sure, when you look at past generations the platform with the most 3rd party support was the victor each and every time. I think MS is purposely focusing on 3rd parties in the hopes of duplicating that success.

It seems to be working to some extent (the most 3rd party exclusive games, the most exclusive DLC, etc..) are on 360.
Click to expand...
Nintendo's first party wasn't as strong as third party efforts in previous generation in terms of mass appeal. This gen it's a whole new ball game, Nintendo's own offering have effectively single-handily carried it's system.
 
BishopLamont said:
Nintendo's first party wasn't as strong as third party efforts in previous generation in terms of mass appeal. This gen it's a whole new ball game, Nintendo's own offering have effectively single-handily carried it's system.
Click to expand...
I don't know what you're talking about. Nintendo's own offerings have always carried their systems. The N64 and GC would have been D.O.A. without them.
 
Those "% of PS2 owners have X next-gen console" numbers are pretty interesting.

Assuming installed bases of 11.4, 10.6 and 5.1 millions of consoles for Wii, 360 and PS3 (from here) and a PS2 installed base of 42.5 millions of consoles, in America:

PS2&Wii owners = 8.07M of consoles
PS2&360 owners = 7.65M of consoles
PS2&PS3 owners = 4.25M of consoles.

That last number is pretty interesting. Considering that there are 5.1M of PS3s, it means that only 850K PS3 owners don't have a PS2. The article states that

There are, no doubt caveats which make this a slightly imperfect measure of where PlayStation 2 owners are going. For example, many PlayStation 2 owners upgrading to a PlayStation 3 may take advantage of hardware trade-in deals at retail outlets like GameStop, especially since many PlayStation 3 models will play PlayStation 2 games. The NPD survey would not record those upgraded consumers as current PlayStation 2 owners, skewing the results.
Click to expand...

But whatever the "upgraded users" number is, it is not more than 850K people out there, aka, 5% of PS2 owners. And this number also includes the people who never had a PS2 in the first place, and the (probably small) number of people who bought a PS3 only for Blu Ray movies.
 
DeaconKnowledge said:
They won't read it, so don't hold your breath.
Click to expand...
They care too much about GAMES to ever read anything regarding sales. As long as they get the games they want they "could" care less! Don't you see how many times they post it in sales threads? It must be true!
 
10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3
18% of PS2 owners also own an Xbox 360
19% of PS2 owners also own a Wii
Click to expand...
Very interesting.

So far 47% of the PS2 owners in US have already bought a 7th gen console. As mentioned earlier, PS2 owners don't automatically convert to PS3 owners in real world which might be actually a shock for some who expected that to happen.

But where will those remaining 53% go..? Now that is the question.
 
The other thing that we can infer from those percentages is the ps2 owners / total installed base ratio for each console.

Wii = 0.707
360 = 0.721
PS3 = 0.833

The ratios are pretty close for Wii and 360. But the PS3 is more than 10% over that. I guess that difference could be blamed on brand loyalty, although it hides the people who have more than one next-gen console. Multiplying the difference between the PS3 and 360 ratios, by the PS3 installed base, we see that the "brand loyal" installed base is 611K PS3 owners.
 
markatisu said:
I really liked this part



Thats something I never see mentioned, you always see "third parties sell better on the 360" but people seem to ignore the fact that Microsoft 1st party is so poor (Halo series removed because its their gem) compared to the PS3 and Wii. I mean when you have virtually no 1st party of course your 3rd party is going to be amazing.

Just thought it was a nice perspective to see, and something Microsoft should be aiming to correct with the remaining lifespan of the 360 and into their next system
Click to expand...
Perhaps, but just Gears and Halo 3 have outsold the majority of PS3's first party line-up combined.

Also, MS don't normally talk about third party in terms of % in comparison to first party, they talk about revenue.
 
Opiate said:
The PS3/360 software breakdown is clearly the big story here, thanks JVM.

It appears the PS3 moved more software in the US than the 360 did.
Click to expand...

The whole playstation family in July did ~180 million in sales while the 360 alone did ~130 million. Of that, Xbox 360 generated $121 million at retail for third-party publishers, or 42% of share. (July NPD data). Nearly a majority share alone.

Not even close in YTD Third party software either;

Some argue that year-to-date third party sales are more important than lifetime sales. Presumably, including the first year after a system launches may skew the data. We estimate that the YTD situation is this:

Wii: Third party software accounted for over 52% of Wii software sales, or 13.4 million units

Xbox 360: Third party software accounted for almost 90% of Xbox 360 software sales, or 16.5 million units

We estimate that third party software sales in 2008 are much slower on the PS3 – around 70% of all software sales and around 7 million units. However, we are not aware of any definitive data to help substantiate these estimates.
Click to expand...

YTD Third Party Sales. Between just the HD twins that is over a 70% share of third party sales YTD.

Xbox 360 16.5 million
Wii 13.4 million
PS3 ~7 million
Click to expand...

pswii60 said:
Perhaps, but just Gears and Halo 3 have outsold the majority of PS3's first party line-up combined.

Also, MS don't normally talk about third party in terms of % in comparison to first party, they talk about revenue.
Click to expand...

Yup
 
Taurus said:
But where will those remaining 53% go..? Now that is the question.
Click to expand...

There is also the price problem.

How many PS2s were sold while the price was still $350 (current X360 price)?

How many PS2s were sold while the price was $250 (Wii price)
 
Jtyettis said:
Yup
Click to expand...

To be fair, at what lifetime of the 360 were Gears and Halo 3 released? Have first-party/exclusive 360 titles performed better than the PS3, adjusting for console lifetime and number of units?
 
Taurus said:
Very interesting.

So far 47% of the PS2 owners in US have already bought a 7th gen console. As mentioned earlier, PS2 owners don't automatically convert to PS3 owners in real world which might be actually a shock for some who expected that to happen.

But where will those remaining 53% go..? Now that is the question.
Click to expand...
Guys, be careful. Those are not distinct groups. In theory they could account for as little as 19% of the total number of PS2 owners (if Xbox 360 and PS3 owners were all Wii owners, for example).

Basically ... you cannot add the percentages.

I thought I had mentioned this in the article, but maybe I should double check.
 
As Elfly has already alluded to, I think that another interesting point to be made about the PS2 conversion statistics is that there is practically no brand loyalty whatsoever. Looking again at the percentages:

PS3: 10%
360: 18%
Wii: 19%

This aligns very closely with the marketshare for the US in general (Wii slightly ahead of 360, PS3 at slightly under half the other two). Again as Elfly mentioned, the PS3 has slightly more marketshare with these people than it does with the general populace, but not much; if the PS3 had 9% marketshare instead of 10%, it would be normal.

In other words, "brand loyalty" may -- and I stress may -- garner an extra 10% of sales. That's a much less significant effect than has been predicted by analysts in the past.
 
jvm said:
Guys, be careful. Those are not distinct groups. In theory they could account for as little as 19% of the total number of PS2 owners (if Xbox 360 and PS3 owners were all Wii owners, for example).

Basically ... you cannot add the percentages.

I thought I had mentioned this in the article, but maybe I should double check.
Click to expand...

You did mention it, and it should be duly noted. However, we're also aware that multi-console ownership is not very high (at last mention of it, I saw it at 2-3%), so while worth noting, we can safely assume it isn't an enormous effect.

I think the bigger issue would be those who have sold and/or thrown out their PS2s after they stopped functioning. That's probably a significantly larger pool of people.
 
jvm said:
Guys, be careful. Those are not distinct groups. In theory they could account for as little as 19% of the total number of PS2 owners (if Xbox 360 and PS3 owners were all Wii owners, for example).

Basically ... you cannot add the percentages.

I thought I had mentioned this in the article, but maybe I should double check.
Click to expand...

You did mention it.

These groups are most certainly not distinct. That is, there are probably Xbox 360 owners counted in the 18% who are also Wii owners and also counted in the 19%, and so forth.
Click to expand...
 
Opiate said:
As Elfly has already alluded to, I think that another interesting point to be made about the PS2 conversion statistics is that there is practically no brand loyalty whatsoever. Looking again at the percentages:

PS3: 10%
360: 18%
Wii: 19%

This aligns very closely with the marketshare for the US in general (Wii slightly ahead of 360, PS3 at slightly under half the other two). Again as Elfly mentioned, the PS3 has slightly more marketshare with these people than it does with the general populace, but not much; if the PS3 had 9% marketshare instead of 10%, it would be normal.

In other words, "brand loyalty" may -- and I stress may -- garner an extra 10% of sales. That's a much less significant effect than has been predicted by analysts in the past.
Click to expand...


Pachter is not pleased, hehe. Anyhow interesting figures although as mentioned probably some level of crossover.
 
Let me put it this way, because it eliminates the multi-console owner issue, and makes the point even clearer.

Total marketshare, according to NPD, in the US:

PS3: ~18%
360: ~39%
Wii: ~42%

Marketshare of PS2 owners who have upgraded:

PS3: ~21%
360: ~38%
Wii: ~41%

PS2 owners are ~2% less likely to get a Wii than the average person, ~3% less likely to get a 360 than the average person, and ~16% more likely to get a PS3 than the average person.

The effect of "brand loyalty" exists, but it's certainly not a dominating factor.
 
Sir Fragula said:
Of course it's all still contextless without the appropriate figures for Xbox and Gamecube owners.
Click to expand...
It is also contextless because we do not know the percentage of PS2 owners that also own both a 360 and PS3, or 360 and a Wii, or a Wii and a PS3 or all three of them.

Pretty useless numbers to draw conclusions from.

Edited: OK someone already mentioned it.
 
painful fart said:
It is also contextless because we do not know the percentage of PS2 owners that also own both a 360 and PS3, or 360 and a Wii, or a Wii and a PS3 or all three of them.

Pretty useless numbers to draw conclusions from.

Edited: OK someone already mentioned it.
Click to expand...

The analysis I just did above eliminates that variable, although we could already assume that the figure was very small. I'm not sure why everyone's making such a big deal about it -- it's nearly a non-factor.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18107
 
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate'',translates as ``entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily''. Keep it simple,use Ockham´s razor.

July 2005 NPD Results

PS2 261K

July 2006 NPD Results

PS2 240K

July 2007 NPD Results

PS2 222K

PS3 159K

July 2008 NPD Results

PS3 225K

PS2 155K
 
Parmenides said:
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate'',translates as ``entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily''. Keep it simple,use Ockham´s razor.

July 2005 NPD Results

PS2 261K

July 2006 NPD Results

PS2 240K

July 2007 NPD Results

PS2 222K

PS3 159K

July 2008 NPD Results

PS3 225K

PS2 155K
Click to expand...

Oh geez. And here I thought Wii's 555K was small.
 
Opiate said:
The analysis I just did above eliminates that variable, although we could already assume that the figure was very small. I'm not sure why everyone's making such a big deal about it -- it's nearly a non-factor.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18107
Click to expand...

How did you calculate your analysis?

Finally, NPD says only three percent of respondents said they owned two of the three next-gen consoles, and only 2 percent said they owned all three.
Click to expand...
I´d expect that among those 5 % the great majority own a PS2 as well and they will skew the numbers in an unproportional way compared to their actual numbers. For example I´d expect there to be more 360/wii owners than 360/PS3 owners.
 
markatisu said:
Thats something I never see mentioned, you always see "third parties sell better on the 360" but people seem to ignore the fact that Microsoft 1st party is so poor (Halo series removed because its their gem) compared to the PS3 and Wii. I mean when you have virtually no 1st party of course your 3rd party is going to be amazing.

Just thought it was a nice perspective to see, and something Microsoft should be aiming to correct with the remaining lifespan of the 360 and into their next system
Click to expand...

Funny. 1st Party MS has been much more successful than Sony this gen.

SRG01 said:
To be fair, at what lifetime of the 360 were Gears and Halo 3 released? Have first-party/exclusive 360 titles performed better than the PS3, adjusting for console lifetime and number of units?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Gears of War has done better than any Ps3 1st party game. Pick a timeline, now, last fall, launch, whatever.
 
painful fart said:
I´d expect that among those 5 % the great majority own a PS2 as well and they will skew the numbers in an unproportional way compared to their actual numbers. For example I´d expect there to be more 360/wii owners than 360/PS3 owners.
Click to expand...

I think that's 3% total (as in, 3% of respondents own 2 or more consoles) though it could use clarification.

What skew do you see in place here, exactly? Are you suggesting that low PS360 ownership is causing a bias that disguises a natural predisposition for PS2 owners to buy PS3s? That makes way less sense than assuming that those numbers correlate with overall marketshare due to PS2 owners having no specific preference.
 
PSGames said:
I'm not so sure, when you look at past generations the platform with the most 3rd party support was the victor each and every time. I think MS is purposely focusing on 3rd parties in the hopes of duplicating that success.

It seems to be working to some extent (the most 3rd party exclusive games, the most exclusive DLC, etc..) are on 360.
Click to expand...

As it stands right now, however, the leading console is almost evenly split between first and third party software sales. So you can't simply say that the console with the highest percentage of third party software sales automatically wins in terms of console sales, any more than Microsoft could seriously claim that the first console to sell 10 million in the U.S. would end up the leading console in terms of sales by the end of the generation. I'm also not sure that the 360 has the most exclusive third-party games; I'd imagine that that, too, would be the Wii, but I have no way of knowing either way. (Additionally, I doubt that most of the exclusive Wii games are even worth discussing--for example, Imagine: Party Babiez.)

As has been mentioned, though, 360's advantage in the percentage of third party software is greatly aided by a measly first party output, and, relative to Wii, the fact that third parties bother putting worthwhile games on it.
 
WrikaWrek said:
Gears of War has done better than any Ps3 1st party game. Pick a timeline, now, last fall, launch, whatever.
Click to expand...

I'm not disputing that, though I do admit that it was a bit of a rhetorical question that I asked before. In truth, I'm looking for a direct numerical comparison, since it would be a nice yardstick to have. Furthermore, both games had significant legs, which are great things to have!
 
painful fart said:
How did you calculate your analysis?


I´d expect that among those 5 % the great majority own a PS2 as well and they will skew the numbers in an unproportional way compared to their actual numbers. For example I´d expect there to be more 360/wii owners than 360/PS3 owners.
Click to expand...
It's 3%, not 5%.

You forget, however, that 2% of gamers owned all three, leaving a grand total of 1% to be carved up amongst three combinations: Wii60/PSThrii/PS360. Even if 90% of these were Wii60, it's such a small number relative to the whole that it's insignificant.

It's 3% dude. That's less than one in thirty. Despite the impression you'd get from spending any length of time around the obsessed gamers who post on NeoGAF, only one in thirty own more than one current-gen console. Of those that do own current-gen consoles, those that ever take their consoles online are in the minority.
 
charlequin said:
I think that's 3% total (as in, 3% of respondents own 2 or more consoles) though it could use clarification.

What skew do you see in place here, exactly? Are you suggesting that low PS360 ownership is causing a bias that disguises a natural predisposition for PS2 owners to buy PS3s? That makes way less sense than assuming that those numbers correlate with overall marketshare due to PS2 owners having no specific preference.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the numbers in the Gamasutra are a bit unspecific, they also concern only online gamers, but that shouldn´t be such a big concern in this context.

I meant it will skew the numbers of Ps2 owners left to be taken, as well as the brand loyalty numbers people are trying to extract.
 
painful fart said:
Do you have another link to support that because that is not what the gamasutra article says.
Click to expand...
The Gamasutra article is sadly ambiguous, but it's the reading that makes the most sense, especially given the headline of the article. 5% is never mentioned in any context.
 
painful fart said:
I meant it will skew the numbers of Ps2 owners left to be taken, as well as the brand loyalty numbers people are trying to extract.
Click to expand...

The 3% figure isn't big enough in any way to skew the loyalty thing. There's really no sensible conclusion that can be drawn from the figures available here except that PS2 owners don't preferentially buy Sony hardware when jumping into the current generation, compared to non-PS2 owners.
 
viciouskillersquirrel said:
The Gamasutra article is sadly ambiguous, but it's the reading that makes the most sense, especially given the headline of the article. 5% is never mentioned in any context.
Click to expand...
The headline is particulary dumb as it could be interpreted as 2-3 % of the US population and it doesn´t mention next-gen consoles or that it applies to online gamers. And why specify a range of 2-3 % if it is as you assume that 3% percent own one or more console.

Dumb article is dumb.
 
jvm said:
The line that interested me most in the press release was "10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3". I wondered what the results were for the other platforms. Here you go:

10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3
18% of PS2 owners also own an Xbox 360
19% of PS2 owners also own a Wii
Click to expand...

How was that even surveyed?

Where do people who sold their ps2 to get a ps3/wii/360 sit in this survey?

I also wonder how different it is outside the U.S.
 
charlequin said:
The 3% figure isn't big enough in any way to skew the loyalty thing. There's really no sensible conclusion that can be drawn from the figures available here.
Click to expand...

3 or 5 % and the numbers are quite dated as well, maybe six months old, the article doesn´t say when the survey was made. I agree there is no sensible conclusíon to made.

charlequin said:
except that PS2 owners don't preferentially buy Sony hardware when jumping into the current generation, compared to non-PS2 owners so far.
Click to expand...
Fixed because all PS2 owners haven´t jumped in yet, some PS3 owners may still find the PS3 to expensive or whatever.
 
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