NPD May 2009

[AranhaHunter]

Numbers originally posted by Evilore on GAF.

PlayStation 2 117K
PlayStation 3 131K
PSP 100.4K
Xbox 360 175K
Wii 289.5K
Nintendo DS 633.5K


UFC 2009 UNDISPUTED (Xbox 360) 679.6K
Wii FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD (Wii) 352.8K
EA SPORTS ACTIVE BUNDLE (Wii) 345.8K
UFC 2009 UNDISPUTED (PS3) 334.4K
INFAMOUS (PS3) 175.9K
POKEMON PLATINUM VERSION (NDS) 168.9K
MARIO KART W/ WHEEL (Wii) 158.3K
PUNCH OUT!! (Wii) 156.9K
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE UNCAGED ED (Xbox 360) 120.7K
Wii PLAY W/ REMOTE (Wii) 109.8K

Analysis from NPD's Anita Frazier:

Originally Posted by Anita Frazier

The video games industry continues to struggle with difficult comparisons to last year, and this is the first month that industry sales have dipped below $1B since August 2007. May is typically one of the lowest revenue-generating months in any given year for the industry in general.

Every category declined versus a year ago with the exception of portable hardware sales which was bolstered by the continued strong sales of the Nintendo DS including both the DSi and the Lite.

Unit sales declined less than dollar sales did. The dollar sales decline was exacerbated by a decline in average retail prices for almost all of the categories.


The DS was the top-selling hardware platform for the month. There is a lot of new DS content coming to market this month for a wide variety of gamers, so we should see strong hardware sales continue.


Two third-party titles had a strong showing in May. UFC Undisputed had a great launch selling over a million units across both platforms, while EA Sports Active Bundle, a Wii exclusive, made it into the top 5. There are more new releases in this month's top 10 list than we have seen for some time. As we mentioned last month, it's a great time to release new IP, illustrated by May's strong debuts of EA's Sports Active and Sony's InFAMOUS.

While there were some very strong new releases this month along with continued strong sales of evergreen games, this month's top 10 games sold 2.6 million units combined, whereas last year the top 10 sold 3.7 million units. Again this illustrates how tough the comparisons are to last year.

Looking ahead to June, there are some promising games coming out this month between Sims 3 (PC), Prototype, Red Faction, Virtua Tennis, Ghostbusters, Transformers and Tiger Woods just to name a few. At E3, it was notable how many games were targeted to the tween girl demographic, and this June will see a number of games introduced for girls as well. June comparisons are still likely to be tough, but the wide variety of new content could help reinvigorate things somewhat.

Tiger Woods titles are typically released in August or September. It will be interesting to watch how the title performs when it's not competing at retail with Madden, and with the impact of the Wii MotionPlus for the Wii version. Releasing it during the month when the U.S. Open (and consequently Tiger) is getting air time can't hurt either.

[Blu boy]

well the ps3 is back on top of the ps2. i thought infamous would at least get over 200,000 copies, oh well it still did goodish. a ps3 price cut cant come soon enough.

[blitz6speed]

Infamous is only 6 days of sales. Did pretty good. Overall a snore fest for a NPD day.

[Maximus]

Pretty good for inFamous I would say. I think the positive reviews really helped as there was no marketing for the title.

[AranhaHunter]

I'm really impressed by UFC, I honestly didn't expect that much for it, THQ must be very happy with it.

And considering inFamous was out for only 6 days, so SCE and Sucker Punch are probably satisfied with its performance.

[bajor27]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Pretty good for inFamous I would say. I think the positive reviews really helped as there was no marketing for the title.

No marketing for the title? I see a commercial for it every time I turn the TV on.

June should be pretty big. It won't be reported in NPD, but Sims 3 sold like 1.4 mil in the first week. Ghostbusters could make an appearance on the list for all 3 consoles. Prototype for the 360 will likely be in there. PS3 version might not be as I could see that market buying INfamous instead. speaking of Infamous, that will probably be in the top 10 for next month as well. Likely one of the new EA Wii games will also show up. Tiger 10 or Grand Slam Tennis - maybe even both. June will be a very tough month to call.

[xino]

why do you care so much about sales!?
just a fanboy man.

I don't even know why people play games anymore if they really care about sales rather than games.

[ras752000]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Pretty good for inFamous I would say. I think the positive reviews really helped as there was no marketing for the title.

They actually had an infamous commercial attached to pre-movie trailers here in the states . . .
or were you joking?

[Marine Mike]

Originally Posted by ras752000

They actually had an infamous commercial attached to pre-movie trailers here in the states . . .
or were you joking?

Yeah, I actually saw a trailer for it at the movie theatre before I saw Star Trek!

[Hedchekr]

Originally Posted by ras752000

They actually had an infamous commercial attached to pre-movie trailers here in the states . . .
or were you joking?

On top of that I saw plenty of commercials for this game on tv as well. It had plenty of marketing. My fiance got tired of me saying "ohh look, InFamous".

[AikonEnt]

I've not seen any advertising for it in the UK, though I don't watch a huge amount of tv.

[jono_0101]

come to think of it, i dont really remember seeing any tv advertising for infamous either, i think it sold pretty well considering

[SleeperAgent]

They had commercials for inFAMOUS on ESPN. I know because I never watch tv at home and we only have ESPN on at work all the time.

I have contributed to June's NPD twice. Prototype and Red Faction WOOT!

[Hedchekr]

Originally Posted by TheSoviet

They had commercials for inFAMOUS on ESPN. I know because I never watch tv at home and we only have ESPN on at work all the time.

I have contributed to June's NPD twice. Prototype and Red Faction WOOT!

ESPN, Spike, and VS. Those are the channels I watch most of the time. I saw plenty of adds on those channels. They were obviously aiming for the male catagory.

[Septimus Prime]

Sometimes I wonder why they release games at the end of the month. It just ends up hurting their numbers for two months in a row (for example, with inFAMOUS, it didn't show stellar results in May because it only had a week, and it's going to see depressed—still good, probably—numbers in June because it doesn't have its opening week). I understand that inFAMOUS is a relatively special case, since it probably wanted to beat Prototype to the market, but I just don't see why other games do that.

[Terjyn]

Probably because the month-to-month NPD is a pretty meaningless snapshot of what really matters, lifetime sales.

Sony and Sucker Punch will know exactly how many copies InFAMOUS sells, do they really care if it lines up with a "random" 3rd party timeline?

[Septimus Prime]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

Probably because the month-to-month NPD is a pretty meaningless snapshot of what really matters, lifetime sales.

Sony and Sucker Punch will know exactly how many copies InFAMOUS sells, do they really care if it lines up with a "random" 3rd party timeline?

I know that, for some publishers, NPD does matter. It shouldn't, but it does. That's why companies pay tons of money for those reports.

[Terjyn]

I don't think I was clear. NPD matters to everyone, the monthly snapshot itself doesn't.

What ultimately matters to a company is how many "good sellers" they've ever had, and whether those sales come in one month or over a long time really doesn't matter. Do you think Naughty Dog is still disappointed that their month one sales of Uncharted were pretty bad?

A game which is a million seller but never cracks the top 10 isn't a failure just because NPD releases a monthly view to the public.

[Jimbo976]

I saw tons of ads for InFamous on TV here.

[Blu boy]

i was thinking scea's marketing finally woke up with infamous, i saw tons of commercials.