Charts – May Top 20 (and additional figures)

The ever-diligent Gamasutra have dug up some more figures for this month’s NPD:

• Terminator: Salvation (Evolved Games, All Versions) – 43,000
• Bionic Commando (Capcom, All Versions) – 27,000
• Boom Blox Bash Party (EA, Wii) – 23,000

The first two games are both developed by Grin and probably make for grim news for the developer, especially after their last game, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, also failed to make an impact in March.

The original Boom Blox sold 60,000 units when it released last May, which was considered a low figure, so EA must be even more disappointed that the sequel has sold just over a third of that.  It’s probably worth bearing in mind though that the original game must have gone on to sell considerably more for EA to justify a sequel, so Bash Party may well turn out to be a similar slow-burner.

Also thanks to Gamasutra, we have the entire NPD top 20, without figures.  Across the entire top ten over half of all the games (eleven) are for the two Nintendo consoles (six for the Wii and five for the DS), with six for Microsoft’s machine and three for Sony’s PS3:

News – No PR Reaction from Sony?

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.

News – May PR Reaction: Microsoft

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

News – May PR Reaction: Nintendo

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)

Analysis – May 2009: Software

The Chart:

1. UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ, Xbox 360) – 679,600
2. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) – 352,800
3. EA Sports Active (Electronic Arts, Wii) – 345,800
4. UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ,  PS3) – 334,400
5. inFamous (Sony, PS3) – 175,900
6. Pokémon Platinum (Nintendo, DS) – 168,900
7. Mario Kart (Nintendo, Wii) – 158,300
8. Punch Out!! (Nintendo, Wii) – 156,900
9. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Activision, Xbox 360) – 120,700
10. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) – 109,800

Familiar Faces

The only games returning from April are in fact the games that have all but taken up permanent positions in the chart.  Wii Fit still sits comfortably near the top, while Mario Kart Wii takes one of its regular spot near the middle.  Wii Play takes its lowest position so far this year at tenth place, while Pokémon Platinum is at sixth place, its lowest point in the chart since its release two months ago.

Analysis – May 2009: Hardware

Once again the video game industry finds itself looking bad when compared to the same month last year, thanks to a more muted software line-up.  Last May sales were riding high on the back of continued sales of GTAIV and Mario Kart Wii, as well as healthy sales from the freshly released Wii Fit, building up an impressive sales total of $1.12 billion.  This month saw sales of $863.3 million, and according to NPD’s Anita Frazier is the first month sales have dropped below one billion since August 2007.

(click for a larger image)

Charts – May 2009

The NPD Group have released the US video game sales figures for May 2009.  Analysis will follow over the next couple of days, but for now here are the charts.

Hardware:

• Nintendo DS – 633,500
• Wii – 289,500
• Xbox 360 – 175,000
• PlayStation 3 – 131,000
• PlayStation 2 – 117,000
• PSP – 100,400

Software:

1. UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ, Xbox 360) – 679,600
2. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) – 352,800
3. EA Sports Active (Electronic Arts, Wii) – 345,800
4. UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ,  PS3) – 334,400
5. Infamous (Sony, PS3) – 175,900
6. Pokémon Platinum (Nintendo, DS) – 168,900
7. Mario Kart (Nintendo, Wii) – 158,300
8. Punch Out!! (Nintendo, Wii) – 156,900
9. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Activision, Xbox 360) – 120,700
10. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) – 109,800

News – May Analyst Predictions

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.