Sales Battle of the Day

LittleBigPlanet vs. Wii Music

Description: Today’s Sales Battle is between two of 2008’s holiday titles that released within one week of each other.  Both games were new properties and both featured user generated content. That is where the similarities end though, as the games are in two very different genres, received very different critic reviews and released on consoles at two very different points in their life (PS3 was coming off a slow year and Wii was coming off of its best year).  Currently Wii Music has a ~200k lead but is being outsold by LittleBigPlanet on a weekly basis.  Which game will end up with the higher total sales? Read on to find out what we decided.

Coming off of the recently released Game of the Year edition, and the huge increase in PS3 sales resulting from the price cut and Slim model, LittleBigPlanet’s sales have increased drastically in recent weeks. Wii Music’s weekly sells on the other hand have been very consistent around the 5-6 thousand mark for the last 6 months.  If you look at just the past week’s or the past month’s sales, it looks like LittleBigPlanet will catch up with Wii Music by the end of the year, and in all likelihood stay ahead permanently. However; if you look at the last 6 months where LittleBigPlanet’s sales are not inflated from the PS3 hardware increase and Game of the Year edition, it would take most of a year for LittleBigPlanet to catch up, but it would still be on track to catch Wii Music as some point.  These trends can be seen in this graph of both game’s weekly sells since launch.

You can see LittleBigPlanet had been gradually catching up with Wii Music for months, but with the release of the Game of the Year edition a few weeks ago sales of the game have elevated quickly, rapidly decreasing the gap between the two. It seems inevitable that LittleBigPlanet will catch up with Wii Music, possibly even before the end of the year.  There are however a couple of factors that could still allow Wii Music to come out on top.  With the big increase in Wii hardware sales off of the price cut for the week ending October 3^rd, Wii Music sales are up about 10% while LittleBigPlanet’s sales were down very slightly from the previous week.  It is possible that if Wii sells remain elevated Wii Music’s sells will continue to increase as new owners pick up more games. 

The other important thing to note is how strong Wii Music’s sales were during the last holiday period.  Both games did well during the holidays (weeks 4-10), but Wii Music sold substantially more than LittleBigPlanet, which is the reason that Wii Music still has the lead.  If the holidays benefit Wii Music more than LittleBigPlanet again this year, then Wii Music may be able to hold off LittleBigPlanet a little longer. That would mean however; Wii Music would need to sell 4-5 times more than it is right now and LittleBigPlanet would remain at current levels with the holidays just offsetting the decline from the release of the Game of the Year edition.  It is an unlikely scenario, but possible.

One other foreseeable factor that could impact the race between the two games is a release of a discounted version. It is difficult to say which game would benefit more from a rerelease, but what is obvious is that LittleBigPlanet will at some point be getting a Greatest Hits/Platinum Range release. Whereas the Wii has yet to have a discounted title line, so it is possible Wii Music will go years without ever having an official price reduction, so this again favors LittleBigPlanet.

Here is a summary of the factors the games have going for and against them.

What Little Big Planet has going...

For it - Outselling Wii Music by around ~15k a week and increasing. The game of the year version just released. On pace to overtake Wii Music in about 10 weeks.

Against it - Still has the 200k deficit to overcome, possible that recent surge in sales will die down now that the game of the year version has been out for awhile. Maybe the PSP game releasing could hurt the sales of the PS3 version?

What Wii Music has going...

For it - Currently has the sales lead. Possible that the recent Wii price cut will cause an increase in weekly sells for the game.  So far "Wii" titles have always sold really well during the holidays.

Against it - Being outsold on a weekly basis.  New potential "evergreen" titles (Wii Fit Plus, New Super Mario Bros. Wii) may reduce sellss even further. 

With all of that information looked at, in my opinion LittleBigPlanet will continue to outsell Wii Music on a weekly basis, although it may slow down slightly during the holidays.  I think LittleBigPlanet will overtake Wii Music around February 2010, and by the time they are both done selling Wii Music will be around 3.1 million and LittleBigPlanet at 3.4 million. Obviously if either game were to become heavily bundled with the system that would greatly alter the current trends.

That is my take on the two games but here is what the VGChartz community thinks.

That is it for today, thanks for reading today’s Sales Battle of the Day, there will be another edition next week until then check out the most recent Look at Those Legs Game of the Day thread featuring Super Mario Galaxy.

Most recent "Sales of the Day" articles, Change in Sales, Sales Battle, Retro Sales, Look at Those Legs.