October ‘08 NPD Numbers: What Recession?

Thu, Nov 13, 2008

Though more than one CEO has cited an October retail slowdown in recent investor conference calls, such a slowdown happily does not seem to have afflicted the U.S. video game industry sales as a whole. Today, the NPD reports that game industry sales actually increased 18% year-over-year to $1.31 billion.

The biggest winner, as usual, was Nintendo, with stellar sales of the Nintendo Wii itself and its three evergreen titles -- but Fable II also posted impressive numbers, and most every major October release found a respectable spot on the chart.

Even compared to the month of September -- right before major game industry stocks began to tank -- October sales rose slightly from $1.27 billion.

Though hardware sales remained absolutely flat at $494 million, the balance of power skewed even further towards Nintendo last month, who sold 803,000 units of the Nintendo Wii, up from 687,000 the month before. The Nintendo DS fell slightly to 491,000 and the Xbox 360 enjoyed a modest increase to 371,000 units.

Sony, however, seemingly lost sales across the board, with PSP slipping to 193,000 (from 238K), PS3 to 190,000 (from 232K) and PS2 to 136,000 (from 175K) -- and this in a month with two PS3 titles on the top ten chart. It's important to note, however, that October measured only four weeks compared to September's five, and so the month's winners are that much more impressive, and its losers somewhat less pitiable than one might otherwise expect.

Software, meanwhile, performed $80 million higher than September, based partially on the titles below:

Fable II - 360 - Microsoft - 790K
Wii Fit - Wii - Nintendo - 487K
Fallout 3 - 360 - Bethesda - 375K
Mario Kart Wii - Wii - Nintendo - 290K
Wii Play - Wii - Nintendo - 282K
Saints Row 2 - 360 - THQ - 270K
Socom: Confrontation - PS3 - Sony - 231K
LittleBigPlanet - PS3 - Sony - 215K
NBA 2K9 - 360 -Take-Two - 202K
Dead Space - 360 - Electronic Arts - 193K

Solid games, to be sure, but you might notice one genre that's conspicuously absent: music titles. Speaking to NPD analyst Anita Frazier, GameDaily found that though they may have momentarily fallen off the charts, sales of Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 are still quite good, with 534K and 600K respectively across Xbox 360 and PS3.

Wii Music, however, seems like it might be a flop, with only 81K units sold since October 20th.

And as for Far Cry 2, well, the NPD tells GameCyte that the console version of Ubisoft's open-world shooter has only managed to sell 167K across both platforms.

Next month, we'll look forward to seeing if the combination of Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Mirror's Edge, Call of Duty 5, Animal Crossing, Left 4 Dead, Tomb Raider and continued sales of Guitar Hero can finally manage to push any of Nintendo's three persistent titles off the chart.

Photo credit: Octouber