http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=2285

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NPD will release September figures for the USA videogame industry on October 16^th at 6:30 PM EST. The data will cover sales for August 31 to October 4, a period of five weeks. Vgchartz Americas figures for the same period are already available, and by scaling down the data for just the United States, we can estimate what NPD will report. August and October NPD figures are both four week periods.

On a monthly basis, we expect NPD to report that Xbox 360 saw a large increase in sales because of the three sku price drop on September 5. Whereas NPD reported Xbox 360 sold an average of about 50,000 units per week in August, we expect Xbox 360 to average over 75,000 per week in September data – pushing the total north of 375,000 units in the USA. For the Americas, VGC has Xbox 360 at nearly 430,000. Wii sold 453,000 units in the USA August NPD report. VGC data has Wii at 655,000 for the five weeks of September in the Americas. As a result, we expect a small rise in weekly Wii sales from the August reporting period to September, from about 113,000 to about 120,000 units per week. DS in contrast, should be up on a monthly basis, but down slightly on a weekly average basis. Nintendo sold 518,000 DS portables in August according to NPD, we expect NPD to report the figure closer to 605,000 for September, a drop in weekly sales from ~130,000 to ~120,000. PSP dropped a bit as well, as the Madden-PSP bundle was phased out. In NPD August, the USA weekly sales rate for PSP was about 63,000. For September, we expect that rate to drop about 25%, to 48,000 units per week. PS3 is a similar story. In August, NPD reported it sold 46,000 per week in the USA (185,000). For September, we expect a slight drop in weekly PS3 sales (to 44,000) to be hidden by the larger monthly total which should rise to 220,000 on the longer tracking period. PS2 should be down on a weekly basis as well. We expect NPD to report PS2 sold 150,000 units in August (30,000/week) after selling 144,000 in August (36,000/week) as the $200 Xbox 360 arcade starts to look like a cheap alternative to the PS2.

Below are VGC September figures for the Americas:    

Software sales for this month are down both year over year and from last month. In August, Madden 2m copies within a few weeks of release. In September 2007, Halo 3 sold 3.3m in the USA in its first month and it helped push Xbox 360 to over 500,000. There were no releases of comparable caliber this September. However, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed did take four of the top ten spots for the month, with sales of 1.3m in the Americas. Rockband 2 and Mercenaries 2, both new Xbox 360 debuts, also sold over 200,000 alongside erstwhile Wii hits Mario Kart and Wii Play. Wii Fit sold over 500,000 units as well. Rounding out the top ten was the Xbox 360 version of Madden. Had Lego Batman had more time to sell in the period it took would have taken multiple spots in the bottom of the top ten. As always, simply multiply the VGC Americas data below by 0.9 to estimate what NPD will report for the USA.

While the sales of Xbox 360 were the main story this month, October will have a number of software stories to watch. Rockband 2, Wii Music, Little Big Planet, Guitar Hero, Fallout, Saints Row, and others will be released. Given the semi-perpetual status of Wii Play and Wii Fit in the top ten, it should be interesting to see which games crack the top ten. With rumors of sharply increased Wii supply for October, Nintendo may maintain its stranglehold on top software despite the big releases on rival platforms. Judging by the success of Rockband 2 on Xbox 360, music games could potentially take up anywhere from 4-8 of the top ten spots next month.

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Thats the preview.

Five weeks of data for September, vs. four in August and four next month. The timeframe is August 31 to October 4.

360 had a price cut at the begginning of the period so VGC data showed a large uptake in weekly sales. Wii increased a bit as well on a weekly basis.

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Keep it civil guys. Its pretty much guarenteed that 360 beat PS3 this month

Damn Rol.

Called me out.

This isn't Japan, so none of that here.

I'm actually not really going to post too much in this thread, kinda busy ATM, just waiting for the numbers.

Good one there Mr. Stoppable.

Isn't that an oxymoron?  Boring = Spontaneous (not being able to anticipate)?

Anyhoo, of course it's not going to be the result I like >_>  Not much you can do when people like to just throw money at problems.  ^_-

Let's hope that October is a better month.  It's my birthday month dammit! I deserve something good.

wow...I forgot it comes out today

Get for the Epic Battle. Another Surprise Shock? Epic Pics FTW!

We'll see if there are any surprises. I think that the NPD sorta overtracks either one of those cosnoles so... wouldn't be surprised if we ended up with PS3 "only" being 75% below X360

Should be an interesting month with the 360's price cut and the split between The Force Unleashed on different platforms. I also wonder if they'll give some breakdown on how the different 360 SKUs are selling. The Arcade might finally become an important SKU for Microsoft.

Here's the EEDAR estimates:



Hardware



* DS - 600,000

* Wii - 600,000

* Xbox 360 - 320,000

* PSP - 235,000

* PS3 - 215,000



Software



1. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - 360 - 505,000

2. Rock Band 2 - 360 - 465,000

3. FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD - Wii - 450,000

4. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - 360 - 350,000

5. PLAY W/ REMOTE - Wii - 275,000

6. MARIO KART W/ WHEEL - Wii - 275,000

7. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Wii - 245,000

8. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - PS3 - 230,000

9. MADDEN NFL 09 - 360 - 177,220

10. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - PS2 - 175,000

CAn't wait...wait...no not this month, it looks bad for the PS3

should be an interesting month for the 360.