Last month’s hardware sales figures from the NPD Group show that Sony’s PlayStation platforms had another very strong month.
PlayStation 3 itself was only 10,000 units behind Microsoft’s Xbox 360, whilst PS2 wasn’t far behind either. Nintendo’s DS and Wii trumped everything however, with 518,000 and 453,000 sales respectively. The PSP came in at a fairly distant third with 185,000 units.
On the software side, the excellent Madden NFL 09 cleaned up. In the all-formats chart, the Xbox 360 version came first, the PS3 version second, and the PS2 version third, giving combined sales of approximately 2 million units.
Hardware Unit Sales
PlayStation 3 185.4K
PlayStation Portable 253.0K
PlayStation 2 144.1K
Xbox 360 195.2K
Wii 453.0K
Nintendo DS 518.3K
Top 10 SKU’s August 2008
(includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)
Platform | Title | Release Date | # Units
1. 360 | MADDEN NFL 09 | Aug-08 | 1.0mm
2. PS3 | MADDEN NFL 09 | Aug-08 | 643K
3. PS2 | MADDEN NFL 09 | Aug-08 | 424.5K
4. WII | WII FIT | May-08 | 394.9K
5. WII | MARIO KART | Apr-08 | 328.7K
6. WII | WII PLAY W/ REMOTE | Feb-07 | 200.2K
7. 360 | SOUL CALIBUR IV | Jul-08 | 174K
8. 360 | TOO HUMAN | Aug-08 | 168.2K
9. WII | MADDEN NFL 09 | Aug-08 | 115.8K
10. NDS | GUITAR HERO: ON TOUR | Jun-08 | 111.2K
NPD analyst, Anita Frazier, had these comments to add:
Overall
"August industry sales remain strong and realized a 9% gain over last August, although the month posted the first single-digit percentage growth in 27 months"
"Despite smaller growth this month, the industry is up 32% year-to-date and remains on target to achieve annual revenues in the range of $22 to $24 billion"
"Across hardware, software and accessories, products for the Wii platform contributed 28% of total industry dollar sales for the month of August"
Hardware
"The PSP and PS3 systems achieved the greatest percentage gain of all now-gen systems. The sales acceleration of these systems, combined with the recent Xbox 360 price cuts should fuel future growth of this category"
Software
"Madden NFL ’09 was the top-selling game of the month, and launched with 2.3 million units out of retail doors in it’s first month, besting last year’s ’08 title by 2%. Year after year, the industry can count on the Madden release to bring folks into stores during the relatively lazy days of late summer"
"Year-to-date, Grand Theft Auto IV remains the top-selling game at 4.8 million units sold in the U.S. through August"
"Wii Play continues its remarkable track record, achieving a 44% attach rate to new Wii hardware sales for the month. It has remained a top-10 game each month since it’s February 2007 introduction"
Accessories
"Xobx Live point cards and gold membership cards represented three of the top-10 accessory items for the month which sheds a little light onto the popularity of this service to Xbox 360 fans"