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Businesses The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

NPDs Look Back on December, 2007 47

Posted by Zonk from the it-prints-money-ha-ha-ha-ha dept.
Joystiq has the NPD numbers for the entire year of 2007 and (of course) December. Last year was a banner year for games, with the industry as a whole coming close to cracking $18 billion in sales. The big winner was the Wii, of course, with some 6 million units sold over the course of the year. The 360 sold about four and a half million, and the PS3 sold about two and a half. The big software seller was (un-shockingly) Halo 3, at 4.82 million sold, with Wii Play close behind at 4.12m. Here are the software numbers for December: "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) -- 1.47m, Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) -- 1.40m, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) -- 1.25m, Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii) -- 1.08m, Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360) -- 894K, Halo 3 (Xbox 360) -- 743K, Brain Age 2 (DS) -- 660K, Madden NFL 08 (PS2) -- 655K, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360) -- 625K, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii) -- 613K"
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NPDs Look Back on December, 2007 More

NPDs Look Back on December, 2007

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  • This is silly, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @02:52PM (#22097810) Homepage
    ...it kind of bugs me that they everyone includes WiiPlay in the best seller lists for 2007....the ONLY reason people bought it is because it included a Wiimote and was only $10 more than a Wiimote by itself...I personally feel that if it didn't include a Wiimote, it wouldn't have sold even a quarter of the number of copies sold...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eln ( 21727 )
      Agreed, Wii Play is basically just a demo just like Wii Sports is. I wouldn't have bought it even if it was in the bargain bin for $5 if it didn't have the Wiimote. It should be included in accessory sales, not software sales.
      • That's a pretty silly assessment there. Sounds like you picked up a copy of Wii Play, right? Assuming you see the value of a WiiMote as $40, you willingly paid $10 for another game that you claimed you wouldn't buy for $5 in a bargain bin. Is that correct? If not, well, then I'm nit-picking.

        Either way, I think Wii Play is worth $10 bucks. The pool game is pretty fun, and Tanks! is pretty fun with that interface. The other games are pretty entertaining as well.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by morari ( 1080535 )
        Wii Play was well worth the $10. Billiards and Laser Hockey do spring to mind. It is little more than a tech demo in the grand scheme of things however. Wii Sports on the other hand is no such thing, good sir! The bowling alone has seen more play from me than many of my regular games. While it may not be the grand pack-in that Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt was, it's still more entertaining than a heck of a lot of more traditional games.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by binaryspiral ( 784263 )
      Nintendo marketing genius...

      "Hey, we have this really bad game. We can't justify making box art for, much less putting it on a shelf... our test group estimated its value at just over a dead raccoon's testicle."

      "Make a bigger box, toss a wiimote in and charge five bucks more."

      "Profit!"

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
        It's a tutorial for the Wiimote, in Japan Wii Sports isn't packed in so they probably wantwed to use it as the introduction to the Wii over there. Of course with Wii Sports being bundled here most people will have learned how to use the Wiimote before they got Wii Play.

    • Re:This is silly, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rimbo ( 139781 ) <rimbosity@sbcglo[ ].net ['bal' in gap]> on Friday January 18, 2008 @03:37PM (#22098668) Homepage Journal
      It's not silly that it bugs you. You're seeing through a cheese-ball marketing tactic for what it is, and that shows you are intelligent and not really a sucker.

      These results include all games, including those that are sold in cheese-ball bundle fashion or low-cost, because the true intended audience for these -- market researchers for game companies -- need to see raw data without applying any rules to them. If Wii Play is selling well because it bundles a Wiimote, then that's a hint to these people that if they can bundle a desirable and hard-to-find accessory with a cheaply-made game, then they can potentially sell a lot more of both than if they don't. I think you'll find in the future 3rd-party controllers shipping with cheap games in order to try and draw more sales as a result of this, sort of in the same way "Deer Hunter" sales at Wal-Mart created a ton of imitators.

      Look at this from NPD's perspective -- why they compile this information. If your rule here were applied to all products: Should we not consider Rock Band because it comes with controllers? Should we not consider Forza sales since it was bundled with some 360's? Should we not consider the first-year PS2/PS3 game console sales because many people purchased them at the time as DVD/Blu-Ray players? Should we not consider Peggle because it is inexpensive? This kind of arbitrary distinction here as to what is a "proper" game or a "proper" way to sell it is very difficult for NPD to make; it works against the value that their figures are meant to provide.

      While NPD is responsible for providing accurate information to their customers, they are not responsible for the decisions made by their customers. If I'm a market researcher for a game company, how I interpret Wii Play's sales is putting my job on the line and my company's future on the line. It is up to me to use my own brain to figure out what you have.

      But I must know what the real data is, which is why NPD includes Wii Play as a top seller.
    • Hmm, so are people only buying Guitar Hero (and all its immitators) because it includes a guitar in the package? I mean, if you look at how well the game sold w/o the guitar (see: Amplitude and Frequency) I think it's fair to say that GH would never have climbed the heights it has either, right?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pojut ( 1027544 )
        Guitar hero is a full-fledged game necessitating hours upon hours of gameplay time to experience everything it has to offer. It is a full-blown game, even without the guitar.

        Wii Play is a series of mini-mini games. The entire product can be experienced in roughly 45 minutes. Without the Wiimote, it would likely sell for $10 (considering the $10 increase in price over a Wiimote)

        Between people I know and what I have seen the three times I waited in line to buy a Wii (one for myself, the other two for famil

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BarneyL ( 578636 )
      I wouldn't be so sure, here in the UK the game on it's own sells for £20 ($40 or so) on e-bay (it's not doing badly in the US either, seems like there's plenty of demand for it.
      Plus if you rate it for what it is - 10 games at $1 each it's pretty good value. I wonder what the charts would look like if other budget games such as those from the Wii Market Place were included.
  • must suck about now, the amount of rationalization that they must go through, even for those that actually like their PS3 and could afford it - should have bought 1.5 PS2s.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by bealzabobs_youruncle ( 971430 )
      Yea, three quarters of a million units in one month, steadily uptrending sales, more quality games arriving in the library and Warner Bros going BD exclusive this month. PS3 owners must be miserable.

      Meanwhile I haven't had a stable connection on Xbox Live since the week before xmas, my console sounds like it's ready to die again and I have an almost identical slate of games to the PS3 coming up. I've been playing my 360 pretty much non-stop since July of 2007 but it isn't all roses and the upcoming line up

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pojut ( 1027544 )
      I personally have always preferred PC Gaming and Xbox gaming over Playstation gaming (primarily because of the controller...I truly despise all iterations of the Playstation controller) but the PS3 is one hell of a system. If I remember correctly, the first couple of years with the PS2 was a bit stangnant in comparison to it's 3-and-up years. Once developers get the hang of the hardware, they are going to producce some amazing stuff.

      Saying that a PS3 is a version 1.5 of a PS2 is just plain immature and un

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
        The problem with the PS3 is not its power or difficulty of use. The userbase simply isn't there to warrant large numbers of PS3 exclusives. The PS2 had a headstart so even though it was slow at first it was selling while the other two consoles weren't (because they weren't on the market) so the PS2 had a large userbase advantage by the time the other consoles launched. The PS3 might be starting at the same speed but this time the competition was out earlier and the XBox 360 had the time to get a year's wort
      • The problem with the PS3 is going to be timing. As you mention, the PS3 is just now coming to a good state. By December we should expect great games for the PS3 as the developers begin to actually understand the hardware. If nothing else changed, the PS3 might take over the game industry.

        The problem, as I mentioned, is timing. Let's say MS settled for a 4-year iteration on the XBox. That would mean that by November they'd be announcing the new Xbox (say XBox 3), to be released by December 2009. It would inc

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
          I think a 4 year cycle for the 360 is unlikely, it's mostly about generations and being early or late to a gen. Releasing a new console resets your userbase, eats R&D money and is generally something that you shouldn't do often. It would end up destroying MS's console division since consoles don't sell for being the latest and greatest but for havbing games and the 360 has games, a new console wouldn't.

          The PS3 taking #1 is very unlikely. Its sales are the worst of all three consoles and just having a sy
          • I was thinking about it this weekend, and realized MS wouldn't even need to release a whole new console.

            The PS3 is being helped along by the fact that it's a cheap Blu ray player.

            If in the next couple of months, blu-ray comes up on top, MS could just release an XBox Blu, with a hard drive and blu ray drive, but the exact same internals, guaranteeing compatibility. MS already produces a bunch of different editions of the XBox anyway. Release a blu-ray addon for older customers to use instead of the HDDVD one
    • Wow, I think you just about defined 'troll' with your post here. I happen to like my PS3 and there's no need to rationalize it or buy additional PS2's.

      Now, if you want to see rationalization, I have a friend who's struggling to find a reason why he should buy more games for his 360 after it just got back from its second RROD return. Of course, he owns a PS3 too, so the only thing he's buying on the 360 from now on are exclusives.

  • The problem with PS3 numbers (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is that there's no way to tell how many of them were bought as Blu-Ray players and not as game consoles.

    The PS3 is hurting badly right now. Literally the only people I know who own one bought it for Blu-Ray support. There's no knowing how small the market is for PS3 games, but a good portion of PS3 sales will never translate into game sales.

    You can tell this by looking at the Amazon.com video game bestsellers list. Yes, the PS3 is on the list, but it's beat by its own Blu-Ray remote and you have to drop t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pojut ( 1027544 )
      Hi. My name is Adam. I do call quality monitoring in a call center, play video games with my fiance 25-30 hours a week, enjoy comic books, movies, all forms of music, and am going jew-bald early (only 23 years old now). I personally own many game systems from many different companies...Nintendo, Microsoft, Sega, Atari, Sony...

      I also own a PS3. I have had it for nearly a year, but I still don't own a single Blu-Ray movie that I have bought. I got it primarily because I was interested in Resistance and I

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kimos ( 859729 )

        play video games with my fiance 25-30 hours a week

        Slightly OT, but I think that this is a defining mark of our generation. The adults who got our first NES new for christmas, give or take.

        My common-law girlfriend and I don't subscribe to television. We watch a movie maybe once a week, or on occasion episode of The Office. But we almost daily play video games together. I play my share of single player Wii games, but for the most part we sit down after work, with dinner, with friends, or otherwise and play games. I don't find us very exceptional, but ten

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pojut ( 1027544 )
          We get Netflix and usually watch at least one movie a week (we are both big movie buffs...our DVD collection combined approaches the 700 mark) however we don't have any TV service of any kind. We get History Channel and PBS specials from Netflix, and if there is a show that we are particularly interested in (such as Dexter) we will just buy it on DVD.

          Half of our gameplay time is spent playing different games, however...Generally, if I am playing a PC game, she will play Viva Pinata, mess around with the 26
        • To keep with the OT conversation, I am in the same boat. My wife and I play board and video games together on a daily basis. Hell, we even met through an MMORPG! (FFXI)

          I agree with the comment about ten or so years ago; when people ask how my wife and I met and I explain, I still get a lot of odd stares and comments.
        • common law girlfriend? Is that from Blackstone? What common law tradition legally defined whether you were going steady or not?

          Maybe I'm missing some sarcasm.

          Anyway. You're right, society has changed. It's ok to play for 25 hours a week. the past generation spends twice that watching TV, and their parents (or grandparents enjoyed the radio a lot more than I do. We had audio learned, then visual learners, and now we're having people who learn through interaction (and learn more).

          I think this is very po
    • Only a handful of 360 ports remain, and have PS3 ports int he works too. I mean, what are teh big 2008 XBOX exclusives? GT5 and MGS4 and FF13 are all major Halo rivalling titles. I see nothing like that for XBOX.

      And the PS3 is actually more profitable to Sony as a blu-ray payer than it is a sa game player, plus Sony plans to sell shows and online movies. The failure of HD-DVD has game developers realizing that the PS3 will probably doing fine.

      The real problem is the XBOX fanboys. The first XBOX was so

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Toonol ( 1057698 )
        I was going to argue with your assumption that Americans have less disposable income than Europeans... and I still might. However, while searching for stats I came across this [europeantissue.com] link... a presentation about toilet paper drawn up by an eager Russian company eager to crack the Western European market. I love the internet. (Warning... it's a PDF.)
        • Those crazy Russians! But TP is serious matter, my friend.

          Americans are still a lucky bunch, but the economy in the states is declining and will decline a lot more for the next few years before having a huge post-war boom. It's happened several times before. They will adapt to paying for a very expensive war (and I'm not trying to argue for or against the war), and then the war will end and they will leap up like they did in 1992.

          While America is still a very important market, it's much more important to

  • NPD? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by flydpnkrtn ( 114575 ) on Friday January 18, 2008 @03:21PM (#22098406)
    What the hell is an NPD? Can we please define obscure acronyms in the summary? I mean... WTF :)
  • 3 Wii! Own those charts!

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