This month's numbers are up. As usual, it's an Excel spreadsheet inside of a ZIP file.
http://www.skyrender.net/2008_console_sales.zip
Picking Up the Pace
As predicted, sales picked up for October overall as we enter into the holiday season. All of the systems saw an otherwise abnormally large number of releases this month (espeically the 360, which has had new titles in the top 50 all month), and all five have picked up in sales particularly during the last two weeks of the month compared to September's weekly results. November should prove, as last year, to be a huge jumpstart to industry sales.
Completely irrelevant statistic: We have now seen just over 1 billion combined software and hardware sales for this generation charted on VG Chartz.
Ups and Downs: Adjustments this Month
This month's adjustments gave a serious boost to the Wii, a reasonable boost to the PS3 and 360, a small boost to the PSP, and a small drop to the DS. Unlike last month's adjustments, the ones for the Wii in particular are fairly significant, approaching almost half a million.
Disruptor Watch: DS and Wii
A very good month, relatively speaking, for the Wii, and a bit of a slow month for the DS. The holiday shipments of the Wii, if they haven't started yet, are clearly on their way, as evidenced by the recent pick-up in sales indicating retailers are pulling out their seasonal stockpile. The DS, however, is definitely starting to show the strain of preliminary (or in Japan's case, prolonged) market saturation. The hope is that the DSi will reach out to a new kind of customer, thus holding off the inevitable downward sales arc for perhaps another year or two.
Old Guard Watch: PSP, PS3, and 360
On the flipside, all of the incumbent-value systems are showing fairly good progress for the month. This can be attributed to a number of causes, such as a slew of pre-holiday releases for the PS3 and 360, and due to the release of a new hardware model for the PSP. Even with this hike in relative sales, however, all three are still losing ground to the disruptors. The power of a market shift is indeed a fearful sight from the side of the incumbent.
Looking Forward, Looking Back
The storm has begun, and the holiday rush is about to commence in earnest. How much people will be willing to spend on gifts this year will have some impact on how much we see for holiday sales, but I don't expect it will be a particularly weak season for video games. In economic hard times, people tend to turn to relatively inexpensive options for entertainment.
Who Will Win, Who Will Wince?
Once again, it's time for projections. Projections are based off of last year's sales and percentages versus this year's sales, estimating percentages will fall within the same basic ranges of success. They are not meant to be taken as any sort of gospel; they are merely predictions made with mathematical formulas instead of being based off of feelings and desires.
System / High Value / Low Value / Cum. High / Cum. Low
Wii / 28,222,858 / 23,927,117 / 47,440,826 / 43,145,085
PS3 / 13,263,318 / 11,244,536 / 22,136,687 / 20,117,905
X360 / 11,247,175 / 9,535,266 / 27,093,575 / 25,381,666
DS / 36,713,525 / 31,125,437 / 100,348,625 / 94,760,537
PSP / 16,313,908 / 13,830,803 / 46,304,040 / 43,820,935
System / Hi M.S. / Lo M.S.
Wii / 51.04% / 46.71%
PS3 / 24.42% / 21.25%
X360 / 29.99% / 26.73%
DS / 69.60% / 67.18%
PSP / 32.82% / 30.40%
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
