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Forums - Sales Discussion - The Official May 2009 NPD Thread (Data at 6:30 PM EST)

Its that time again.

The data covers the four weeks ending May 30, 2009.

Market looks down alot from last month (no DSi launch) and down from last year (no Wii Fit, GTAIV)

EA Sports Active is supposed to be at 600k worldwide sellthrough as of the May 30 week (EA specifically said this at their conference - they were quite proud of it and rightly so), it should be interesting to see where NPD puts it. If Wii is to meet or exceed our estimates its due EA Sports Active and/or Punch Out.

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Jacob Mazel

NPD will release video game sales data for the USA market covering the four weeks ending May 30, this Thursday at 6:30 PM EST. Vgchartz data for the same period of time, across the entirety of the Americas is already available. Compared to May 2008, it looks like another down month simply because of how elevated the market was then riding on the backs of Wii Fit, Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart Wii.

Scaling down the Vgchartz Americas data to estimate for the United States (over the industry, 87% of all "Americas" sales come from the USA), we expect NPD to report that the six hardware systems sold roughly the following amounts in May.


VGChartz Wedbush EEDAR
DS      448,000      440,000      430,000
Wii      373,000      300,000      340,000
360      170,000      140,000      150,000
PS3      132,000      100,000      120,000
PS2      122,000      130,000      111,000
PSP      103,000        90,000      100,000

In May 2008, NPD reported the following hardware totals for the United States market.

Wii – 675,000
DS – 453,000
PS3 – 209,000
360 – 187,000
PSP – 182,000
PS2 – 132,000

In essence, DS, PS2 and Xbox 360 will be almost flat year over year, while PS3, Wii, and PSP will be down sharply. The PS2 and Xbox 360 ‘flat’ year over year comparisons actually mean less money for Microsoft and Sony though as the systems cost less in May 2009 than May 2008. For DS, the flat sales are good news, because the DSi costs 30% more than the DS Lite, so Nintendo made more money on DS than last year. Compared to April 2009, the story doesn’t get much better.

            May 2009 NPD Est             April 2009 NPD Sales

Wii              373,000                                     340,000
PS3             132,000                                     127,000
360             170,000                                     175,000
DS               448,000                                    1,040,000
PSP             103,000                                     116,000
PS2             122,000                                     172,000       

The DS dropped sharply from April 2009 with the launch effect of the DSi over. Nonetheless, it was still the best selling platform in May 2009. Wii saw a modest boost in May on EA Sports Active and Punch Out, climbing 10% over its April 2009 level. The PS3 and Xbox 360 also saw single digit month over month increases from April. PSP dropped about 10% though, and the PS2 dropped about 30% as its early April price cut boost had largely lost its early effectiveness by late May.

Software sales were relatively quiet for the month of May, the scaled (87%) figures for May are shown below.


May 2009 Top Sellers Platform Publisher Sales





1 Wii Fit Wii Nintendo 369,903
2 EA Sports Active Wii EA 305,999
3 UFC 2009 Undisputed X360 THQ 212,237
4 Pokemon Platinum DS Nintendo 183,668
5 Mario Kart Wii Wii Nintendo 173,202
6 Punch Out!! Wii Nintendo 156,584
7 UFC 2009 Undisputed PS3 THQ 154,309
8 Wii Play Wii Nintendo 148,244
9 Infamous PS3 SCEA 101,006
10 X Men Origins: Wolverine U.E. X360 Act-Bliz 87,357
11 New Super Mario Brothers DS Nintendo 87,098
12 Mario Kart DS DS Nintendo 76,571
13 Sacred 2: Fallen Angel X360 CDV SW 73,953
14 Halo 3 X360 Microsoft 73,829
15 Call of Duty: World at War X360 Act-Bliz 68,831
16 X Men Origins: Wolverine U.E. PS3 Act-Bliz 58,847
17 Gardening Mama DS Majesco 58,337
18 Lego Star Wars: T.C.S. Wii Lucas Arts 50,708
19 MLB 09: The Show PS3 SCEA 50,522
20 Nintendogs DS Nintendo 50,151

Estimating for the United States, five of the ten best selling titles for the month were on the Wii. THQ scored a big hit on PS3 and Xbox 360 with UFC 2009 Undisputed. DS software quieted back down this month as hardware sales returned to more seasonal levels, allowing four Playstation titles, all for PS3, to chart in the top twenty. Five Xbox 360 titles charted in the top twenty although most missed the top ten on low Xbox 360 sales. It seems that the Wii Fitness genre is in full swing with Wii Fit and EA Sports active taking the top two spots and both titles are expected to be in the top ten for many months to come before Wii Fit Plus and the EA Sports Active expansion pack arrive at the end of the year.

Looking ahead, June should be a relatively quiet month, although the portables usually see increased demand as kids are let out of school.  In addition, the initial motion plus games and a new iteration of Guitar Hero should insure better software sales for the month compared to May. Fight Night 4, Prototype and The Conduit have a chance at breaking out as fairly big hits as well.

 



People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.

When there are more laws, there are more criminals.

- Lao Tzu

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Yay! It's that time again... I can't wait! xD



The BuShA owns all!

How come these "Official NPD" threads are never updated as the info is presented by NPD?

It always says "NPD is expected to report" and then never updated to what the numbers show..



PS4 Preordered - 06/11/2013 @09:30am

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"I don't trust #XboxOne & #Kinect 2.0, it's always connected" as you tweet from your smartphone - irony 0_o

EA Sports should be the #1 selling game this month easily. I also doubt that Punch Out made it into the top ten, it's too niche and not casual enough. We shall see.



Currently playing on PS3: God of War III

Currently playing on Xbox360: Final Fantasy XIII

Currently playing on NDS: Chrono Trigger

I think that UFC Undisputed is going to be undertracked.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

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oh yeah its today!



All hail the KING, Andrespetmonkey

I expect some "Wii is killing gaming" thanks to the success of EA Sports Active.



mrstickball said:
I think that UFC Undisputed is going to be undertracked.

That's a given.



Currently playing on PS3: God of War III

Currently playing on Xbox360: Final Fantasy XIII

Currently playing on NDS: Chrono Trigger

sega4life said:

How come these "Official NPD" threads are never updated as the info is presented by NPD?

It always says "NPD is expected to report" and then never updated to what the numbers show..

What do you mean?  The numbers of what NPD are expected to report are VGChartz numbers.  Sometime EEDAR and Wedbush Morgan numbers are included. 



MANUELF said:
I expect some "Wii is killing gaming" thanks to the success of EA Sports Active.

Give 'em some credit...  I think they're past the angry stage by now for the most part!