Games Industry Sees 12 Billion in Sales For 2006

Gamespot is reporting that, with the NPD numbers in, we can finally put the debate about last year's winners and losers to rest. Overall, the industry was the winner, with a record-breaking $12.5 Billion in sales last year. December accounted for almost $4 Billion all by itself. In software, the usual suspects prevailed. Madden topped the chart with 2.8 Million in sales for the PS2 version of Madden 07. Right behind was New Super Mario Bros. on the DS, with some 2 Million in sales of its own. On the console side of things ... well, as Kotaku points out 'everyone is a winner' this year. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have all put out press releases declaring themselves the winner of the Holiday console wars. The sad reality, though, is there can be only one. According to the NPD numbers, between the launch of the new consoles and the end of the year, some 1.1 Million Nintendo Wiis were sold with 687,300 PS3s following closely behind. Microsoft trails with its numbers from 2005; it sold 607,000 consoles in its launch year. Don't feel too bad for Microsoft, though. They sold 1.1 Million 360s in December. The article points out this means Microsoft met its '10 Million in sales' goal for the end of 2006.

Comments

Gears of War sales?

[Itchyeyes]

Madden topped the chart with 2.8 Million in sales for the PS2 version of Madden 07. Right behind was New Super Mario Bros. on the DS, with some 2 Million in sales of its own Where does Gears of War fit into this? The statistics I've read said it had sold 2.7 million copies as of Jan 2nd. Unless Gears sold over 700,000 copies in the first two days of the year, it would appear that these statistics are at least somewhat off.

Analyst concerns

[AKAImBatman]

From the article:

Analysts were also skeptical, with some believing that the Wii sold more than NPD reported. "I don't understand how US Wii sell-through could be 1.1 million cumulatively, with Nintendo saying that they shipped half of their 4 million here and zero inventory on retail shelves at year end," said Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter. "Where are the other 900,000 units? I assume 200,000 are in transit, but this number makes no sense to me at all."

If the 1.1 million figure was just December, then it would make more sense. But 1.1 million since launch? That seems incredibly low no matter which way you cut it.

(Of course, that probably means that the PS3 and Xbox360 numbers are low as well.)

Re:Price

[Thansal]

hmmm, I dono. I am willing to bet the price was a factor for parents figguring out if Little Timmy (after all, we Know little timmy isn't that smart, after the incedent with H2SO4, and probably can't get the cash together to buy himself one, or the fact that he is under 16 YoA) gets a PS3 for XMass or not.

True, to hardcore gamers price possibly isn't AS big a deal, but even there I am betting a number of people that would have picked up the PS3 (despite the lackluster showing of games) are waiting it out for better games and a pricedrop (where in over cases people would have been willing to pick it up and then wait for the games).

Oh, and with the 360's showin in December, it looks like the race is going to be between MS and Nintendo.

Re:What you mean ...

[Frostclaw]

Funny, while I was hunting down a Wii before Christmas I found DOZENS of PS3's in the city (Saint John, NB, Canada) and that trend still continues. I finally stumbled on a Wii a week after the new year, and have yet to see one since.

This misses subscription services such as WoW?

[Hays]

World of Warcraft has 8million players. If they all pay 15 dollars a month (and I don't know that they do, because I don't know the fees in other countries) then that's 1.44 Billion dollars.

I'm not sure I see any PC games in the lists in the article, actually.

10 million worldwide?

[Daetrin]

Don't feel too bad for Microsoft, though. They sold 1.1 Million 360s in December. The article points out this means Microsoft met its '10 Million in sales' goal for the end of 2006

According to these NPD numbers Microsoft has sold a cumulative total of 4.5 million 360s in the US. So if they've hit 10 million they must have sold 5.5 million in the rest of the world. They've sold 200k in Japan so that would mean 5.3 million split between Europe, Australia and other smaller markets. I had the impression that the US was by far and away Microsoft's strongest market, is there some factor i'm not considering?

No, they lost 'new console launches'

[Chris Burke]

Measured in each of the three consoles' respective launch windows, the Wii sold more than any of the others, as in they had the best launch. The game spot article titled "Wii tops new console launches" makes this clear.

Of course all of them were production limited initially, so all this by itself really means is that Nintendo had the best pre-launch manufacturing story. Now I guarantee you this wasn't an accident, and manufacturability was a major consideration in the Wii's design. Still it doesn't tell the story of right now, which is that the 360 is way ahead, thanks to the whole year they had to fix their production problems and sell consoles with no next-gen competition.

Speaking of, I am once again boggled at the Sony fanbois who use the PS1 and PS2 as proof that PS3 will dominate Nintendo and MS, but forget about that all-important year lead time PS1 had on N64 and PS2 had on Xbox and GC. Now the shoe is on the other foot and Sony is starting this generation as the marketshare underdog.