IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

NPD: October Game Industry Sales Plunge 19% as Wii, Uncharted 2 Dominate

Posted November 12, 2009 by James Brightman

Upon receiving the data, IndustryGamers caught up with NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier for some added insight.

IG: After a slight positive in September, all categories were way down in October. Clearly console price cuts weren't enough. What was the major culprit?

Frazier:  Sales were down across all categories on a unit basis. The only category to increase in dollars was portable hardware, and that was due to an increase in the average retail price, due to the higher price of newer systems and bundles. Wii hardware sales is still reflecting the impact of the price reduction, but the other two platforms declined versus September and are no longer bolstered by the price cut. Now obviously we're headed into the two months of the year where the greatest sales are generated. It could be that folks are delaying hardware purchases until closer to the holiday. The economy and the increasing unemployment rate could very well be impacting disposable income available to spend on games and hardware. That said, November has some really killer releases and hopefully will reflect the beginning of brighter days for the industry.

IG: What does the outlook seem to be for 2009 totals now that the industry is down 13% through October?

Frazier: Based on typical industry seasonality and taking into account the release pattern this year, I'm calling the full year at around $20-$21 billion for the year, which would bring it in slightly below last year's $21.3B in sales. I do think November and December will be big months but they would have to be monstrous to make up for the shortfall in the first 10 months of the year. Obviously November sales will shed a lot more light on the situation when we release those numbers on December 10th.

IG: The PS3 sold nearly 500K in September. With Uncharted 2 and the price cut you'd think October would have been better than 320K... what happened?

Frazier: Uncharted 2 certainly generated some impressive sales. Keep in mind that September was a 5-week month so the month-over-month comparison is not apples to apples. On an average weeks sales basis, PS3 sales declined 19%. The price reduction didn't seem to bolster sales this month, but again this could completely change in November as holiday purchasing kicks in.

IG: How did the music category fare, following September's Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band Beatles? How did those two games do in October and how did DJ Hero do?

Frazier: The music/dance genre was the third best-selling genre for the month behind first person shooters and general action, but still the genre suffered a major decrease as compared to last October's sales. Sales of the genre generated $53 million at retail in the U.S., but that was down from $137 million last year.

[Editor's note:  NPD explained it can't provide units data outside the top 10 immediately. We'll be following up for more exact data on the music games.]

IG: Any other major trends or surprises you want to point to?

Frazier:  I thought the sales of Wii Fit Plus were really interesting. Sales were roughly divided between the software-only SKU and the SKU that came bundled with the balance board, so that would indicate to me that a lot of "newbies" were recruited to the franchise. NBA 2K10 was the best-selling item across all platforms for the month, and it sold 60% more units than its predecessor did last year in its launch month.

IG: Thanks Anita! 

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.