Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

March NPD Sales Show Continuing Trends

Posted by Zonk on from the third-verse-same-as-the-first dept.

GameDaily has coverage of the NPD numbers for March, which show a general continuation of trends we've seen since the Wii and PS3 were released last year. Overall, sales are up 54% across the industry, with the DS leading the pack by a healthy amount. "The [DS] sold through 508K units for the month. The PS2, likely fueled by God of War II, came in second with 280K units. The Wii followed with 259K — quite respectable but far lower than certain analyst forecasts, which had pegged it at around 400K. The Wii now stands at 2.1 million in the US. Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold another 199K, bringing its life-to-date total to 5.3 million in the U.S."

33 comments

  1. O rly? by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 1

    The Wii followed with 259K--quite respectable but far lower than certain analyst forecasts, which had pegged it at around 400K. I guess this is the nice way to say "Sales dropped 41% since January, despite Nintendo's claims of ramping up production to meet demand."
    1. Re:O rly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, it's down on the 335,000 in February. Maybe they really ARE creating shortages in the US. I know that most local (in Italy) stores have them in stock.

    2. Re:O rly? by evil+agent · · Score: 1

      That's funny, all I've been hearing is that that they held back supply after they met their target for that quarter. I expect sales in April to be much higher, April being the beginning of a new quarter.

      --
      End transmission.
    3. Re:O rly? by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 0

      It's pulling shit like that erodes 3rd party support.

    4. Re:O rly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought NDP numbers didn't include Wal-Mart. This would bring the numbers closer to 400 000 that the ANALysts predicted.

    5. Re:O rly? by AbsoluteXyro · · Score: 1

      I think Nintendo is simply burning through supply that was built up during last year's pre-launch production. We will probably see production increase after this month, as Nintendo's financial year will be beginning.

    6. Re:O rly? by falcon5768 · · Score: 0

      sept these are NPR numbers, which have NEVER reflected online sales or Walmarts.

      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

    7. Re:O rly? by 222 · · Score: 1

      The surplus that was created to fuel holiday shopping has been exhausted. Considering the Wii is pretty much sold out everywhere, expect similar numbers until Nintendo opens additional production facilities.

    8. Re:O rly? by eln · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's the rumor that's been all over the place, but here it is almost the end of April and I still can't find a Wii anywhere. If they were holding units back so they could dump them on the market in April, the second part of their plan isn't working so well.

      I think the "stockpiling units until April" rumor is more wishful thinking than anything else.

    9. Re:O rly? by badasscat · · Score: 1

      sept these are NPR numbers, which have NEVER reflected online sales or Walmarts.

      Jesus, can we put this myth to bed at some point?

      I'll say it simply: NPD reports do reflect both online sales and Wal-Mart.

      What they don't do is actually count those sales. That doesn't mean they can't reflect them.

      The NPD, like most other organizations doing polling, relies on statistical sampling. Their sample, though, is huge - about 60% of the total market. That means they can be accurate to within about 0.1% - probably about the same as if they were actually counting only physical units (because errors do creep in when combining physical data from a variety of disparate sources that each have their own methods of measurement).

      Look at it this way. The game industry itself relies on these numbers. Do you think that would be the case if the industry knew that the world's largest retailer was not reflected in the report?

      Get it through your heads, everybody - 100% of the industry's sales are reflected in this report. The fact that the NPD isn't going through Wal-Mart hand-counting systems being sold doesn't change that.

    10. Re:O rly? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Not to defend that utterly retarded theory (for one thing, if they were going to artificially limit supply, they would have limited it to a level where they could still outsell the PS2)... But remember that the sale goes on Nintendo's books when they sell it to the retailer (or supply chain middleman, however it works), not when the retailer puts the box on the shelf for you to buy. So they could have theoretically opened the floodgates on their warehouses on April 1, sold a ton of units to retailers, and those boxes could still be winding their way to the retailers over here in the States.

      But I agree that emotion, not logic, is the only thing supporting the theory.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    11. Re:O rly? by LoverOfJoy · · Score: 1

      I haven't been shopping for a wii (don't have the money at the moment) but easter weekend did seem to have a lot of adds for the wii. Most stores stopped having ads for the wii a while ago but easter weekend was the first I'd seen an ad for an actual wii system in a long time.

    12. Re:O rly? by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      That's the rumor that's been all over the place, but here it is almost the end of April and I still can't find a Wii anywhere. If they were holding units back so they could dump them on the market in April, the second part of their plan isn't working so well.

      I think the "stockpiling units until April" rumor is more wishful thinking than anything else.


      Well, a store where I visit sold 90 units in last week - the store was stockpiling them. All sold out a couple of hours later. So it looks like there is still a huge pent-up demand - people are still asking about the Wii. They got a huge shipment of wiimotes and such though - wiimotes are no longer harder to find than the wii.

      PS3 on the other hand are so numerous, there's even a preprinted cardboard sign saying "PS3 in stock!", and an open box one still available to be purchased.
    13. Re:O rly? by falcon5768 · · Score: 1

      Look at it this way. The game industry itself relies on these numbers. Do you think that would be the case if the industry knew that the world's largest retailer was not reflected in the report?
      The game industry it's self does NOT use these numbers. It never has. Game REPORTERS use them, but thats because its cheap to get their hands on, unlike the industries REAL numbers list.
      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  2. About those DSes... by Lenneth-chan · · Score: 1

    So, anyone wanna guess one of the things that are selling all those DSes? I'll give you a hint: it starts with 'P' and ends with 'okemon'... (Two more days, isn't it?)

    1. Re:About those DSes... by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      No, actually, it's Nintendogs. According to my investor's email from Nintendo.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  3. 55 months by Gunslinger47 · · Score: 1

    Around 9.5 million Xbox 360s have been sold, and around 6.2 million Wiis.

    According to TFA, Nintendo is only selling 60 thousand monthly compared to Microsoft. At this rate, it will take 55 months to close the gap.

    1. Re:55 months by MooseMuffin · · Score: 1

      You're using the difference in north american sales to show when nintendo will close the world wide gap. Remember that the wii sells well in Japan, where the 360 doesn't really sell at all. Nintendo is actually catching up considerably faster than this.

    2. Re:55 months by toolie · · Score: 1, Informative

      Not only that, but NPD uses a subset of North American numbers. They don't include online sales, or from some major chains (Wal-Mart I think is one of them). Add those in and the Wii is catching up a lot faster than the NPD numbers alone makes it look like.

      --
      -- toolie
    3. Re:55 months by revlayle · · Score: 1

      about 10 mil in 15 months (360) compared to 6 1/2 mil in about 6 months.... and you are saying 55 months??? Is this "new math"?

    4. Re:55 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Also dont forget that while the 360 and PS3 will have consistant sales the Wii wont, many are predicting it to drop in a big way once the "fad" dynamic dies down, and when that happens Sony and MS will sail passed.

    5. Re:55 months by Tofystedeth · · Score: 3, Informative

      Assuming neither console has any drop in sales in about 23 months the Wii will have sold as many consoles as the 360. Wii monthly sales are about 1.083 mil. 360 are about .66. so setting 1.083M = .66M + 10 gives us an M of approximately 23. I had to find some online graphing calculator to find the intersects. High school was so long ago.

      --
      "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deeply or not at all."
    6. Re:55 months by Wdomburg · · Score: 1

      They don't have data from online sales or Walmart, but the numbers reflect 100% of the market (through extrapolation).

    7. Re:55 months by WarwickRyan · · Score: 1

      It's Math 2.0 ;-)

    8. Re:55 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's just wishful thinking. Nintendo's present momentum isn't going to dissipate just like that, and Microsoft and Sony aren't going to pick up that momentum just like that; looking at the previous generations will show you that success in the console wars is self-perpetuating. In fact, if the present sales situation keeps up a little longer, the Wii will hit the critical sales mass and enjoy the kind of dominance Sony attained in the past two generations.

    9. Re:55 months by r_jensen11 · · Score: 1

      In fact, if the present sales situation keeps up a little longer, the Wii will hit the critical sales mass and enjoy the kind of dominance Sony attained in the past two generations.

      What, you mean like what they had 20 years ago?

    10. Re:55 months by RiskyChris · · Score: 0

      Fad dynamic? Are people still really buying this? Here's some facts: 1) No other game company has shipped and sold as many consoles in 5 months as Nintendo has. Period 2) Once a game console has momentum, it snowballs until it becomes market leader. PS1/PS2 didn't hit 100 million sold by having "consistent sales."

    11. Re:55 months by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Online sales are so small compared to retail that they're negligible. Walmart's sales can be expected to be proportional to those of all the other brick and mortar retailers. The incomplete data really isn't an issue.

  4. need to know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For all those blocked at work, where's the other systems sitting at?

  5. Nintendo Production Numbers by rlp · · Score: 1

    Last set of numbers I saw - Nintendo was producing 1 million Wii's / month and ramping up to 1.5 million / month.

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  6. There must be a mistake... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't the NPD numbers be shouting: Video games industry is dying! Video games industry is dying!

    Or was that last week's Slashdot news?

  7. WTF does NPD stand for? by Dr.+Zarkov · · Score: 1

    Google & Wikipedia don't seem to know, which of course leaves me helpless. All the gamer sites assume everyone knows... can you tell I'm not a video game junkie?

    --
    The song in "The Roads Must Roll" is all reet.
    1. Re:WTF does NPD stand for? by militia · · Score: 2, Informative

      i think this is it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPD_Group