http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/npd-wii-and-gta-dominate-ps3-tops-360-in-112-billion-may/?biz=1&page=2
BIZ: Last month you and other analysts thought that GTA may yield a bigger hardware sales boost for May since it did little for Xbox 360 and PS3 in April, but May hardware numbers for the Sony and MS consoles remained low. What happened?
Anita Frazier: I was surprised by this month's hardware sales because I did believe we'd see a boost in May. GTA IV sales remained very strong so you can't point to waning interest in the title as contributing to slower hardware sales. There were probably many factors at play here and I think it's going to take some time living with the data and doing some greater analysis to develop some theories, so I'm afraid I don't have a quick answer for you on this one.
BIZ: GTA IV on 360 outsold GTA IV on PS3 by nearly 2:1. Do you believe this is a sign that Microsoft has managed to pull away more PlayStation gamers to their side?
AF: Yes, the 360 version outsold the PS3 version so that platform is winning the race in absolute numbers, but keep in mind the install base for the 360 is more than twice that of the PS3 and in fact the attach rate of GTA IV is quite high for the PS3. Both sides can claim a victory with this title using different measurements.
BIZ: May sales seemed quite similar to April, with GTA and Mario Kart dominating once again. Did you notice any new trends in May?
AF: I don't know if I'd call it a trend but two "newer" things caught my attention. First, the success of the Iron Man game and the fact that the PS2 SKU made the top 10 lists points to the continued strength of that platform, particularly for licensed mass-friendly titles such as Iron Man. Second, although it didn't make the top 10, We Ski came in twelfth and the cross promotion at retail and in circulars with Wii Fit seems to have paid off for that game. I got Wii Fit and my kids saw We Ski and started asking for it because they thought it looked so fun.
BIZ: Did Iron Man's performance surprise you? The game wasn't reviewed so well. Does that just show the power of a good movie tie-in?
AF: Never underestimate the power of a strong brand. The movie was reviewed very well and has performed well at the box office so that, combined with strong marketing, likely helped spur game sales. What's so interesting about the video game market right now is that games of all shapes and sizes are succeeding. Wii Fit is clearly very different from GTA IV which is very different from Iron Man. It's an illustration of just how broad the appeal of gaming is becoming.
BIZ: Do you think Wii Fit's performance met industry expectations? How much do you think it drove new Wii adoption?
AF: Given the continued strong demand for the Wii and it's impossible to discern how Wii Fit may have fueled the demand even further but certainly the game performed very strongly and it's the kind of content that can continue to benefit from word of mouth. In other words, it's the kind of content that is likely to have "legs."
BIZ: Thanks for your time.
