The NPD Group have announced that the results for September are not going to be released tonight after all, and have instead been pushed back to Monday 19th. The full text of the announcement is below:
“We have just released a communication to our clients, explaining that, due to last minute processing requirements, the NPD Video Games Retail Tracking information for September 2009 will now be released on Monday, October 19. We will issue our media advisory at 6:30pm EST on Monday. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
The EEDAR Group’s Jesse Divnich and Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter have both made their predictions for September’s US NPD sales figures, and if they’re correct it will be a very good month for the PS3 Slim. Both also expect that price cuts for all three home consoles will help to increase sales over those of recent months:
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As the (late) June posts should indicate, I’ve changed the analysis system slightly. Instead of one big analysis each for hardware and software, there will be a few smaller, separate analyses spread out over several days. The new system should go something like this:
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Responding to this month’s NPD figures, SCEA’s Patrick Seybold focused on Sony’s post-E3 momentum and the increase in PS3 sales over the last few months:
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In their PR response, Nintendo focused on the success of the DS. While ignoring yet another year-on-year decline for the Wii, the response did point out that the Wii has been the best-selling home console for twenty-one months now, and provided some figures for the Wii MotionPlus peripheral, which apparently sold almost 374,000 units in June:
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I haven’t currently been able to locate any reaction from Sony to the May NPD results. It’s not unusual for them to stay quiet when there’s little positive to talk about, and if there hasn’t been a response by now we likely won’t hear anything from them. Other than pointing out that inFamous has done okay in its first week, there’s little else to say.
I’ll keep looking though.
Microsoft’s press release does not currently seem to be public anywhere, but according to Gamasutra Microsoft focused on the 360 being the only home console to have increased its sales for the first five months of the year when compared to the same period in 2008, praising the “resilience” of the system:
The company pointed out that Xbox 360 saw a 22 percent year-to-date increase over 2008, the only home console to do so…
…Microsoft is correct when it says its system exhibits “the most year-over-year resilience of any console” for the month…
…Microsoft credits the success on its current $199 price point for its least expensive model, as well as on its game library and Xbox Live, which was recently announced as having exceeded 20 million active users worldwide.
Microsoft apparently also reiterated its strong Metacritic figures, with 142 Xbox 360 games currently over 80 on the site, more than any other system this generation.
Source:
Gamasutra
Nintendo naturally bragged about the DS topping the hardware chart by a large margin, as well as revealing that the Wii reached a big milestone (while ignoring its year-on-year decline, of course):
U.S. consumers purchased nearly 390,000 Nintendo DSi™ systems and nearly 244,000 Nintendo DS systems in May, for a combined total of more than 633,000 hand-helds. Total Nintendo DS franchise sales are at more than 31 million in the United States.
Nintendo’s Wii™ console also hit a major milestone in May. With more than 289,000 unit sales in May, U.S. Wii sales crossed the 20 million mark after just 31 months on the market, reinforcing its position as the fastest-selling console in history.
On the software side, Nintendo were keen to point out that six of the top ten games were on Nintendo platforms:
Six games published for Nintendo platforms finished in the top 10 best-sellers of May in the United States. These include Wii Fit™ at No. 2 with nearly 353,000 sold, EA Sports Active at No. 3 with nearly 346,000 sold, Pokémon™ Platinum Version at No. 6 with nearly 169,000 sold, Mario Kart™ Wii at No. 7 with more than 158,000 sold Punch-Out!!™ at No. 8 with nearly 157,000 sold and Wii Play™ at No. 10 with more than 109,000 sold.
Source
VG247 (includes full press release)
With the May NPD almost upon us, both Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter and the EEDAR Group have made their predictions for the month’s video game hardware sales. Both remain fairly pessimistic for another month (no doubt in part because of May being another month of slim software releases), predicting year-on-year declines for all systems.
May 2008′s figures:
- Wii – 675,100
- PS3 – 208,700
- Xbox 360 – 186,600
- DS – 452,600
- PSP – 182,300
- PS2 – 132,700
Software sales in May 2008 totalled $536.9 million.
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After yesterday’s information about the sales of the two Halo games in April – that they must have sold between 57,000 and 74,000 units – we can now get even more specific, as Halo 3 has emerged as the better-selling of the two games, shifting 67,000 units.
There are no exact figures for Halo Wars, but its position between The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and Halo 3 in the 360′s chart means that it sold between 57,000 and 67,000, which is slightly more specific than yesterday.
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