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

The Slowest Month

September has, as with last year, proven itself to be a very slow month. The brief lull before the start of the Christmas season is marked by retailers stockpiling video game systems, and by developers keeping their highest-profile releases back so they can catch the wave of holiday sales. This results in an explosion of sales at the very tail end of October, when the Christmas rush hits.

Of all systems, only the 360 experienced any noticeable improvement in hardware sales over last month, due largely to a strategic price cut done a few weeks ago. This boosted the system back up to July-level sales, just in time to make it look good for the pre-holiday rush.

Ups and Downs: Adjustments this Month

All three of the current-generation consoles were adjusted down over the last month, and both DS and PSP got a subtle boost. Overall, however, the difference seems to be pretty minimal.

Disruptor Watch: DS and Wii

Nothing particularly alarming or surprising has been happening on either front in terms of sales. Both are going through the usual seasonal lull, just like the rest of the systems. The end of October should see this change a bit as the lull comes to a close.

Old Guard Watch: PSP, PS3, and 360

Other than Microsoft's move to boost sales via a price drop, these three systems are experiencing a very normal progression into the seasonal lull. Expect all three to pick up near the end of next month. Also, those who remember 2007 sales may recall a similar 360 boost as this year at about the same time (midway into October of last year, actually), due to Halo 3. Microsoft seems to enjoy unleashing their sales boost efforts during the lull period.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

September is the calm before the storm. This calm will not last much longer, however, as the inevitable rush for gifts begins within the next three weeks. This month has matched the historical trends nicely, and though it's a bland month to watch progress, it's still interesting to see how thing slow before the grand explosion of sales.

Who Will Win, Who Will Wince?

And finally, the part everybody loves, the 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 / 28,269,659 / 23,612,677 / 47,487,627 / 42,830,645
PS3 / 14,009,045 / 11,701,275 / 22,882,414 / 20,574,644
X360 / 10,870,238 / 9,079,537 / 26,716,638 / 24,925,937
DS / 37,045,545 / 30,942,874 / 100,680,645 / 94,577,974
PSP / 17,311,403 / 14,459,622 / 47,301,535 / 44,449,754

System / Hi M.S. / Lo M.S.
Wii / 51.07% / 46.34%
PS3 / 25.25% / 21.71%
X360 / 29.64% / 26.16%
DS / 69.37% / 66.66%
PSP / 33.34% / 30.63%

This is very hard to read.Please try to put it simple.

Unfortunately, there's not much I can do to simplify it. It's a pretty complex collection. But the charts section of the spreadsheet will probably be most interesting to anybody wanting a quick breakdown.

The idea that the DS could break a hundred million units in less than 120 weeks is terrifying.

I think he's asking for the cumulative values section to be re-arranged so that it's easier to read, not for any data to be simplified.

As I said, Rol, it's not a prediction in the typical sense; it's a projection. That particular projection is based off of the sales percentages of 2007, as an extreme best case scenario. For that to happen, the Wii would have to sell the maximum projected amount (28,269,659 for the year), and the PS3 and 360 would have to sell the minimum projected amount (11,701,275 and 9,079,537 for the year, respectively). This is as unlikely as the opposite happening.

For most likely results, look between the extremes of the projection.

If only the rest of us could be so honest...

@skyrender: Nice work. I can't imagine how long you had to go tromping through the data to get it. A question for you, though: even though you've given us your projections, would you be willing to provide your predictions?

It does take a while, but not as long as you might think. The monthly assembly tends to take about 2 hours at this point, and has only come to take longer as the year has gone by (naturally).

I hate making predictions. If it's not mathematically based somehow, it feels like messy guesswork to me. Projections are about as close as I'm willing to get to prediction, unless I have a very solid understanding of the product, the customers, and the direction of the market.

This makes me feel better about PS3 sales.