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[EviLore]

Data care of NPD Group


PlayStation 2 112K
PlayStation 3 218K
PSP 168K
Xbox 360 330K
Wii 601K
Nintendo DS 563K


RESIDENT EVIL 5* (360) 938K
POKEMON PLATINUM VERSION (NDS) 805K
HALO WARS* (360) 639K
RESIDENT EVIL 5* (PS3) 585K
WII FIT W/BALANCE BOARD (WII) 541K
MLB '09: THE SHOW (PS3) 305K
KILLZONE 2 (PS3) 296K
WII PLAY W/REMOTE (WII) 281K
MARIO KART W/WHEEL (WII) 278K
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL 2K9 (360) 205K

(*includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)


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Dollar Sales figures

                Mar-08*         Mar-09           CHG  Quarter 1 08     Quarter 1 09   CHG
Video Games     $1.72 Billion   $1.43 Billion    -17% $4.24 Billion   $4.25 Billion   0%   
VG Hardware     $552.04 Million $455.55 Million  -18% $1.41 Billion   $1.43 Billion   1%   
VG Software     $952.14 Million $792.83 Million  -17% $2.24 Billion   $2.21 Billion  -2%   
VG Accessories  217.55 Million  $185.67 Million  -15% $588.92 Million $604.47 Million 3%

(* Easter fell on 3/23/08 last year, which accounted for $121M in sales. This year, Easter fell on 4/12/09, most of which will hit April data.)


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Analysis from NPD's Anita Frazier:

While it might be tempting to jump to the conclusion that the sky is starting to fall on the video games industry given this months results, it's important to remember that two very big things are different this year than last. First, Easter fell in March last year whereas it fell in April this year, and last March included the release of Super Smash Bros.: Brawl, which went on to become the fourth best-selling game in 2008.

You might not think that Easter is that big of a gift-giving holiday, but our consumer data shows that 8% of industry unit sales were purchased for the Easter occasion in March 2008, accounting for $121M of that months' sales. We expect that most of Easter sales this year fell into the April reporting period and we'll see that reflected in next month's data.

This is very much like September of last year, which did not compare favorably to September of 2007 as the result of a huge game launch, Halo 3. Besides March 2008, this month's sales are 31% higher than the previous highest March which was March of 2007, so it was a pretty healthy month for sales, overall.


If there was one area that surprised me this month, it was hardware sales. While it's not unusual for March hardware sales to be lower than February, I thought we'd see higher unit sales on most platforms. The Xbox 360 was the only platform to achieve a year-over-year unit sales increase.

The PS2 price decrease occurred on April 1, so this month included only 4 days of sales as the new retail price. We would expect to see an increase in PS2 hardware sell-through in the April data.

Wii and NDS hardware sales remained brisk, taking the top two spots for the month in hardware unit sales. It's important to keep in mind that the Super Smash Bros. Brawl effect from last year impacted hardware sales as well, so while the year-over-year comps are down for the Wii, the sales are still impressive.


Core gamers had something to cheer about last month with the release of Resident Evil 5. The title sold over 1.5 million units across all SKU's which is a record-breaking launch for that property.

The top-ten software list includes three games for each of the new platforms as well as Pokemon Platinum for the DS. I think this shows that there doesn't have to be one winner of the console battle - in fact software for all the platforms can enjoy retail success.

 

[donny2112]

33% drop in weekly numbers for Wii from February. No GTA:Chinatown Wars. 360 RE5 almost 1 million.

Wow. :lol

 

[MobiusPigeon]

hay guys wats going on here? :lol

 

[Lindsay]

Mission Accomplished.

 

[Lord Helmet]

It's time!

 

[GitarooMan]

Sweet, glad RE5 rocked it, it's a fucking awesome game.

 

[Askia47]

WOW AT RE5

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

Go Halo Wars Go!

 

[DMeisterJ]

PS3 sales are tragic.

KZ2 held good, MLB opened really good, and RE5 Pwned.

Awesome Pokemon sales, and Wii and DS and 360 always pwn.

Chinatown Wars?

 

[jaypah]

and the wii goes on.

 

[Arsenic]

The show outselling MLB09
Im so happy for team San Diego.

Quality finally prevails.

Expected hardware numbers, nothing surprising.

And killzone

 

[Brakara]

Lower than expected HW sales. Great numbers for RE5.

 

[Arsenic]

The Show 09 outselling MLB2K9. Im so happy for team San Diego. Quality finally prevails.

Expected hardware numbers, nothing surprising.

And killzone

EDIT: What were last year numbers for The Show?

 

[MobiusPigeon]

ugh :lol 500 error ? is this the killzone party oh wait wtf @ res evil 360 good god!

 

[rexor0717]

Sad to say, but KZ2 did almost nothing for PS3 sales.
At least it was in the Top 10.

I wish I could be playing it right now.

 

[UraMallas]

What the hell happened to all of the console sales? It would seem the extra week didn't boost sales at all, which would also indicate that all of the consoles have cooled off from last month.

 

[Flakster99]

Baseball represent! A little shocked at the Sony hardware numbers in general, low as fuck across the board.

 

[Orlics]

Nice job Capcom

 

[DefectiveReject]

E3 is gonna bust the forum!

 

[trancekr]

WOW

 

[krae_man]

PS3 wins

Spoiler

The battle of MLB titles

 

[adelante]

holy crap halo wars

 

[Nirolak]

Well done RE5 and Halo Wars!

That's quite a nice performance for Killzone 2 as well.

 

[Chinner]

wasnt the ratio for re5 numbers meant to be pretty equal? anyway owned.

also:

enjoy stealing my(photobuckets) bandwidth you leeches

 

[John Dunbar]

my predictions, noooooooo

 

[RpgN]

First page?

WOW RE5!!!

Killzone 2 made it in the top 10 :O

 

[VALIS]

Halo Wars sold more in one NPD than Killzone 2 did in two of them. Yowtch. :lol

Also, shocked that RE5 360 was almost double the PS3 sales. I thought, like SFIV, that was more of a franchise people identified with Playstation.

 

[Grecco]

Wow at those RE sales. Great month for them


Sad PS3 sales though ouch indeed

 

[sangreal]

no wonder OT is crawling

 

[GameGamer]

So we've finally seen the peak of the Wii?

 

[Thunder Monkey]

There goes my entrance into the top 25 of the year.

 

[Osuwari]

wtf?
everything went down hardware-wise despite being a 5-week month?
oh boy, my predictions got royally fucked this time.

at least the software side looks good..

 

[dasupremeone]

wow just wow

 

[akilshohen]

RE5 beat Pokemon? Wow

 

[onipex]

Nice numbers for Wii and DS as usual. 360 looks good. Everything is in order. No real surprises.

 

[Frillen]

HWs are way lower than I expected, especially the PS3. KZ2 selling PS3s my ***. And it's losing to a console RTS :lol

 

[Zapages]

Not bad I guess... No street fighter IV...

 

[wrowa]

Wow, Wii seems very low.

 

[AndresON777]

Wow at RE5 360.

Go MLB09 the show, I had a feeling it'd do better than killzone. Great advertising too

 

[gregor7777]

PS3 just took a beatdown. Guess that explains the corporate trolling.

360 is just rollin' along. MS must be very happy.

 

[schuelma]

Wow, low low hardware sales.

Recession actually starting to have an impact?

Fair to say Wii demand has peaked/been met?


And nutso Resident Evil number. Crazy.

 

[Dirtbag]

the only thing that surprised me was the insane resident evil numbers, everything else is pretty much how I expected.
semi-wow at Halo Wars (console rts sales).

 

[Aaron Strife]

I was wondering why I got like 10 internal server errors.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Xbox 360 330K

Wow. Crashed hard from last month, and this was moving from four to five weeks.

 

[The Librarian]

Surprised that Halo Wars managed to outsell Killzone 2.

 

[Sadist]

What the hell man. Very low compared to last year.

 

[Clever Pun]

So we've finally seen the peak of the Wii?

well, in what regard? It's not going to stop selling, and it will be over 600k during the holidays for sure. We might have hit a peak for non-holiday sales, though, if that's what you mean.

 

[BravoSuperStar]

Good numbers for Killzone 2. But less PS3 hardware sold than I would have thought given how much KZ2 sold. Sony also just announced KZ2 has sold 1 million worldwide...

 

[adamsapple]

someone photoshop chris punching bags of money here !

 

[B-Rad Lascelle]

No Street Fighter IV?
No MadWorld?
No GTA: Chinatown Wars?

Uh oh.