Jacob Mazel

In the last full week of videogame sales in 2008, nearly three dozen games sold over 100,000 copies. The week ending December 20^th is the biggest of 2008, since the following week only includes six “real” shopping days. Nintendo managed to sell nearly 2 million pieces of hardware in the Americas this week, out of 3.2m units across the six major platforms. Year over year sales are up as well, which is impressive given that the comparable week last year ended December 22, putting it closer to the Christmas Eve peak.

Holiday sales for the big three in the Americas suggest that they are on target to meet shipment goals. Nintendo expects to ship 51.95m Wiis between the November 2006 launch and March 2009. To reach that level or exceed it, shipments will likely reach 47m units or more at the end of 2008, which is about the correct pace for 52m shipped by the end of March. Sony expects to have shipped 22.85m PS3s at the end of March 2009, and that figure looks attainable as well, with shipments of PS3 likely topping 20m units this week. PSP shipments are forecast by Sony to reach about 53m by March 2009, while PS2 shipments are forecast to reach 139m by March 2009 (after shipping 130 million through March 2008 - see page 33). The PSP figure looks a bit high at this point, given that PSP is selling more slowly than Wii, has sold fewer units to date now as well, and has a higher March 2009 target than Wii does. The PS2 figure on the other hand should be achievable, given that Sony keeps pushing the console into small new markets. Microsoft doesn’t provide shipment forecasts anymore, but the Xbox 360 will be hitting 30m units shipped in early 2009.

12-20-2008 Top Current Generation Software

Notes:

-     Year to date, 42 games have sold over 1m copies in the Americas.

-     Of the top 20 games of the year (excluding the bundled Wii Sports) to date; only two are for PS3, only one of which is an exclusive. Of the top twenty selling games this year, 13 are exclusive.

-    Wii Fit should top 5m units in the Americas next week. Not bad for less than 7 months of sales in the Americas.

-    The Xbox 360 now has a larger user base in the Americas than the PSP does.

-    PS2 is going to just miss selling 50m units in the Americas in 2008.

-    Prince of Perisa has seen strong legs over the Christmas season, and now sits at over 600,000 units across Xbox 360 and PS3.

-    Shaun White Snowboarding, also from Ubisoft, has nearly sold 800,000 copies across Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3.

-    Activision sold over 1.11m units of Guitar Hero games this week (all versions combined).

-   Wii topped 20m units this week in the Americas.

-   Seven publishers sold at least 1 million videogames this week.

-   With 3.19m units of hardware sold this week, selling your game to even 1 out of 100 new customers brings in at least $1 million in revenue if the game bought is a new release (Revenue >= 3.2m * $35 * .01).

-   Uncharted: Drakes Fortune topped 1m units in the Americas this week.

-   Shooter Shoot-out: Resistance 2 has sold 570,000 units on PS3, while Gears of War 2 has sold 2.48m units on Xbox 360. In the Americas, the Xbox 360 has over a 2:1 user base advantage over PS3. However, the 2480k:570k software ratio is about 4.35:1 which suggests Xbox 360 owners also prefer shooting games 2:1 over PS3 owners, even with the user base factored out.

-   Charting million sellers in the top 200: Wii – 14, Xbox 360 – 20, PS3 – 7.

-    To date, 42,624,361 Wiis, Xbox 360s, and PS3s have been sold in the Americas. Of those machines sold, 47% are Wiis, 36% are Xbox 360s, and 17% are PS3s.

Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com