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.

Price

[HappySqurriel (1010623)]

Riley also thought the PS3's high price--$499 for the 20GB model, $599 for the 60GB--wasn't as large a factor as many have made it out to be. "I think price plays a role there, but remember during the holiday season people have deep pockets," he said. "Kids know what they want, and if they tell mom to go buy a PS3 and she comes home with a Wii, they won't be happy."

Honestly, when it comes to console sales I don't think price has that much of an impact on early adopters because it is a planned purchase; something which is budgeted for and anticipated months in advance. Where price becomes a factor is that most console purchases are not planned and happen when one or two popular games are sold; when someone watches an advertisement on TV and goes out to buy a PS3 with Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy they will (mostly) be anticipating a price of $300 or $400 for the system and game combined.

Re:Price

[Thansal (999464)]

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:

[Chris Burke (6130)]

Yeah price isn't a big deal for that tiny fraction of people who can be called early adopters. People buying consoles as Christmas gifts for their families do not fit that mold -- again except for a tiny fraction. And they do often budget and plan for Christmas months in advance, but that does not mean that they can afford to budget $600 -- they're budgeting because they have limited funds. A lot of people doing this will plan to buy a cheaper console because $600 is too much.

And as far as the quote abou

Re:

[vidarh (309115)]

Attacking the PS3 for it's high price and saying it doesn't has that much impact on early adopters is entirely consistent - if you read the rest of the message you'll see he points out that he thinks it does have an impact on the majority of console sales because most sales aren't planned purchases. Whether you agree with him or not doesn't mean he can't have it both ways.

It's all relative?

[antialias02 (997199)]

I'm still scratching my head as to how 687,000 is "closely behind" 1.1 Million. (400,000 consoles is nothing to shake a stick at.)

Re:

[Otter (3800)]

I think the point is that relative to 10 million 360's, it's close. (Or maybe it's closely behind in dollar sales, not in units.)

Re:

[Eponymous Crowbar (974055)]

The first several months of the 360's introduction were pretty rough for potential buyers. As bad as the PS3 shortages were, I can walk into a store right now and pick one up after just two months on the market. The 360 trickled out until it was already 4-6 months old (which was when I could finally find one to buy without putting any effort into the search). It was more or less sold out until then.

Nifty

[Thansal (999464)]

Well, it is always fun to see the sales numbers.

I am VERY happy to see NSMB at number 2 (Hey, I am a nintendo fanboy, what can I say). I also am unsurprised (though still disapointed in the general public) to see Madden at #1.

What I AM surprised about is to see the number of Z:TP copies sold for the NGC vs the number sold for the Wii. And if you add the 2 numbers together you end up with it dominating the december market, and coming into the top 10 for the year, and that is cause for much rejocing to me!

Re:

[Aladrin (926209)]

Sports games sell a LOT differently than other games. Sports gamers buy the game when it first comes out, and that's it. Buy-back prices suck because stores know they won't be able to resell the used game anyhow. Sports gamers just don't buy used games.

Why?

I'm not a sports gamer, but I imagine it's because they know in less than a year, the next version of the same game will be out and if you missed the launch of the game by 6 months, you can probably just wait 6 more for next year's better version and s

Re:

[Thansal (999464)]

I know, thus why I was not suprised. I am disapointed b/c the Madden games really do not evolve much between years. Yah, if you look at it over a 3 or 5 year delay then you get a decent evoloution (I think, as I stay away from them mostly, just catch a few screen shots when ever the new one is about to come out). So why do you have to buy the new one each friken year? Do you have to have the exact uptodate team rosters and player stats (hell, you can program those in with most of the newer ones)? Are th

Re:

[Thansal (999464)]

Buying a Madden isn't a bad thing (hey, if yah like watchign football, I guess it is fun, I admitedly have no interest). However, buying the same game, every year, with NOTHING NEW (aside from better graphics and the new team rosters), makes me sad.

As a side note, this is the same reason why I hate seeing all these FPS games that are simply rehashes of the same ol', same ol' sell so well. I was afraid of this when we saw UT2K3 and UT2K4 (it felt exactly as if UT was turning into madden), however the games

Gears of War sales?

[Itchyeyes (908311)]

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.

Re:Gears of War sales?

[jonnythan (79727)]

Raw #s:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13769 3 [neogaf.com]

Bottom line is that Gears of War was the best selling game of December, at 815,000 copies. It was #3 for the year with 1.8 million sales (following Madden 07 for the PS2 @ 2.8 million and New Super Mario Bros for the DS at 2 million).

It was #5 for all titles in December (the "All Titles" category lumps all versions of a single game together.. for instance, Madden 07 sales include sales on the PS2, PS3, 360, XBox, etc).

Re:

[Timesprout (579035)]

It was the top seller in Dec apparently with 815.7 K sales and 1.8 M sales since its release in Nov.

Analyst concerns

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

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.)

"Don't feel too bad for Microsoft, though."

[Half a dent (952274)]

Uh... ok I'll try not to.

Sony faces a formidible challenge this time

[MikeRT (947531)]

The XBox 360 is a much, much better system already than the XBox ever was in terms of game library. Gears of War, 99 Nights, Quake 4, Enchanted Arms, Phantasy Star Online, Dead Rising and with games like Halo 3 and Lost Planet on the horizon for 2007, Sony faces a much tougher challenge. If Microsoft has already hit 10,000,000 units sold and is still climbing, as I suspect they are, it's probably only a matter of time before Square-Enix gets antsy and starts to think about Final Fantasy 13 and other games appearing on the XBox 360 and Wii.

I would expect 2007 to be the year that Sony finally gets its ass handed to it by Microsoft and Nintendo starts to return to its old status as a force unto itself in game production.

The X360 is attractring the critical RPG element

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

I bought an X360 initially for Oblivion, and wound up also buying my first FPS (Prey) in many years, but I'm still a big RPG/platformer head. The outlook for RPGs on the X360 is really quite good. More than a few of us RPG fans would like to see the FF series go cross platform. If Blue Dragon, with its FF based pedigree, does well on the X360, Square-Enix will have to factor that in. From what I have read Blue Dragon has single handedly sold a hefty number of X360s in *Japan*.

Re:

[Daetrin (576516)]

I would expect 2007 to be the year that Sony finally gets its ass handed to it by Microsoft and Nintendo starts to return to its old status as a force unto itself in game production.

You want to see a force unto itself? Take a look at the Japanese software sales for the first week off 2007! [gamesarefun.com] Nintendo has 10 our of the top 10 titles, 18 out of the top 20, and 24 out of the top 30. If you look at titles actually published by Nintendo itself it's 9/10, 15/20, and 20/30. The only bad news for Nintendo there is

Re:

[revlayle (964221)]

MGS4 = franchise - but probably a good game ultimately. Heavenly sword... looks awesome, doesn't it? Not much else we know about it. Also, the pr0n industry has chosen HD-DVD, which EVERYONE knows, of course, that BluRay has lost now ;-)

I fail a bit to see what this has to do with BluRay vs. HD-DVD that much. Yeah, the system allow playing the two different media (360 = HD-DVD w/available add-on; PS3 = out of the box), but I'm not convinced that the reason people bought one of these system was the ab

Sounds like world of warcraft got boring in 2006?

[guysmilee (720583)]

Sounds like world of warcraft got boring in 2006?

Re:Sounds like world of warcraft got boring in 200

[MooseMuffin (799896)]

Well, they did reach the 8 million subscriber mark http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml [blizzard.com] and have their first expansion coming out next week, which a good percent of those 8 mil will buy. I imagine Blizzard is fairly comfortable with their financial situation right now.

Anecdotal but it seems like the losers were online

[by Anonymous Coward]

retailers. For instance, amazon.com it seems got screwed when it came to its wii allotment. I can't find one online retailer that is selling either the wii or ps3 at retail(the ones above retail are "used" for instance on amazon). It seems like both Sony and Nintendo passed them up to go with brick and mortar stores.

Re:Anecdotal but it seems like the losers were onl

[MirthScout (247854)]

I don't know about PS3s since I see them in stores everywhere but...

I can't detect any unfairness in allocation of Wii consoles since they are equally hard to find at brick and mortar stores as they are hard to find online. I'd been trying to find a Wii console since mid-December and finally got one locally at Circuit City only because I used http://www.itrackr.com/ [itrackr.com] to notify me when some arrived (they were sold out again in less than 2 hours; probably less than 10 units).

Re:Anecdotal but it seems like the losers were onl

[Thansal (999464)]

Here yah go [circuitcity.com]

PS3 for $599.99

ATM no one seems to have the Wii instock (a few places had them as late as yesterday, but only game bundles).

If you are tryign to track down systems then:
buy wii, from techbargains [techbargains.com]
buy PS3, from techbargains [techbargains.com]
Wii Tracker [wiitracker.com]
PS3 Finder [ps3finder.com] (same people as wii tracker)

enjoy.

Re:

[damiangerous (218679)]

Circuit City had Wiis in stock this morning briefly online. They also had them in store, the one nearest me was showing as available for about an hour.

Re:

[Thansal (999464)]

Wait, Wii Play is out in the UK? DAMN YOU!!!! (If you have gotten a copy of it, how is it?)

However you are right. If you REALLY want a Wii it isn't that hard, just requires persistance. One of the easiest ways is to find out when a store is gettign a shipment and camp the fark out (I have 3 friends that did this, and thus have 3 Wiis). I am to lazy to do this and thus still have no Wii, however I am patient and will simply buy them once they are redaliy avaliable (I predict a month or 2). Admitedly, if

The real news - PS2 sales

[RichPowers (998637)]

The PlayStation 2 sold 1.4 million units in December. The PS2 has a great library of games (many of them discounted) and there are still plenty of new releases to look forward to (Rogue Galaxy comes to mind). The Interweb is full of all these geek debates about PS3 vs. Wii (and they are fun, don't get me wrong), but the PS2's success is do, in part, to its vast game selection. That, IMHO, will always be more important than tech specs. Hopefully, though, the new consoles will have a more robust game selection in the coming months.

Re:

[Thansal (999464)]

Your friend is only partialy correct. The blatent fanboys (who will refuse to switch companies) might stick with the PS2 over the PS3, and will upgrade theri system or the other 2.

The problem is that the large majority of gamers are not fanboys (they are the quite majority because the raving loony fanboys are the VERY vocal minority).

I am a Nintendo fanboy (though not a raving loony) and will thus be gettign a Wii, however I am also looking to pick up a PS2 this time around (I have been rather broke for th

This misses subscription services such as WoW?

[Hays (409837)]

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.

Re:

[AliasTheRoot (171859)]

WoW has 8 million players true, but around half of them are in AsiaPac where the pricing model is completely different. We also don't know whether the 8 million figures are active subs or not. I personally have 2 accounts that have lapsed, do those count towards the 8 mill or not?

Re:

[AliasTheRoot (171859)]

Meh didn't read the press release, they count only active subs. I'll be one of those reactivating my account soon with the release of BC. I guess those subs figures will surge a fair bit - availability of the expansion is going to be interesting.

I'm a Mac head and Windows hater, but

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

they've done a nice job on the X360. The online stuff is trouble free and the games have been good. I'm *still* mucking about with Oblivion. It's nice to finally have downloadable content for consoles.

Wii and PS3 sold a lot of XB360s in December

[dtjohnson (102237)]

A lot of people bought xb360 in December because there were no wii or ps3 systems to buy and they got ticked off and bought an xb360 just to get a nextgen console. Even today, there are no wii or ps3 systems in most places. And don't even think about buying accessories like a second wiimote.

Is it just me?

[silentounce (1004459)]

Someone a little trigger happy on the topic selection? I'd rather not have icons over the first comment when I'm trying to read it. Where can I mod the topic as -1 Redundant?

The real race starts

[shirizaki (994008)]

Initial release is nothing but the adrenaline rush. It's now up to developers to make quality games that take proper advantage of the hardware and for the hardware people to keep up production quality.

To that effect, if the Wii doesn't get unique games (instead of the same games on other systems with enhanced controlling schemes), the Wii might end up being the loser. Waving a remote might sound awesome for the next few months, but then people will realize that other games treat the Wii as a gimmick inst

10 million worldwide?

[Daetrin (576516)]

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 [gamesarefun.com] 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 [gamesarefun.com] 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?

2 million Super Mario Bros.

[jimbob666 (1050308)]

2 Million New Super Mario Bros. sales on DS speaks volumes. Games don't need to be over complicated and cost $ millions to produce. Keep it simple yet very playable!

The "console wars" fiasco

[Lisandro (799651)]

Sheeze, can we put this to rest already? It seems that, for the last couple of console generations, all that people care about is who won and who lost. Number of shipped consoles vs. sold ones, launch date numbers, millons invested in advertising, etc. Nevermind the endless drooling over polygons per seconds, CPUs, memory controllers and the works. People live and die by these numbers, claiming that company X is the winner of this generation while company Y is in the brink of bankruptcy.

Come on guys. I can understand (barely) this kind of insaness from fanboy sites, but please, can we move forward? If you like consoles, why do you care beyond which one is more fun to play, or has more games that appeal to you? Do we really have to get into the pissing contest of which one sold an extra 10 units this month? I mean, is it relevant? Is it even interesting? If you like consoles, you have not one, nor two, but three excellent options to chose from, and that's it. I'd like to see more discussion about games rather than units shipped, Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD or whatever is trendy this week.

Re:

[Lisandro (799651)]

Which has nothing to do with units shipped, launch sales, hardware specs and assorted crap. If you want to know which console will be "super popular", wait until the next-next gen consoles are released and pick the one that did the best in the previous one for $50. That's the only sure way.

Re:What you mean ...

[Duds (100634)]

Well that's just the thing, Sony DIDN'T sell all their PS3s. It's quite trivial to get on in the US now.

Re:What you mean ...

[MeanderingMind (884641)]

Assuming $600 is trivial.

Re:

[gravesb (967413)]

Its not really fair to make any comparison right now. Until all produces can ship to meet or exceed demand, its impossible to make any kind of accurate comparison. Also, initial success doesn't necessarily mean long term success. The WII may appeal to people now because its unique, but it has to show that its control scheme is more than just a gimmick to hold onto its appeal. I certainly hope that it does, as it would encourage more innovation in general, but its far to early to crown a champion, or eve

Re:

[gravesb (967413)]

Very good point, but it talks about some of the error in numbers. I wonder where those errors come from, and if the scarcity is artificially limited. Also, all three have features that haven't really caught on, such as Blu-Ray movies for the PS3, the full library of classic games for the WII, and Halo 3 for the Xbox360. There is still too many unknowns to make a decent prediction.

Re:What you mean ...

[Thansal (999464)]

ummm

Disclaimer: I am a nintendo Fan, however I will try to stay unbiased.

1.1Mill Xboxen sold in Dec (just dec, remember, both the PS3 and Wii were launched in Nov) says that they trounced the PS3. However (yes, you can see the glee in this Nintendo fanboy's eyes) the Wii is giving the 360 a run for its money with 1.1mill units sold in Nov/Dec.

Also that says the Wii's launch sales trounce the 360's, however you do have to remember that the 360 had a HORRIBLE launch when it came to product avalability, where the Wii is having an abundance of production (though they still sell out).

My prediciton?
Unless Sony pulls their act together (gets some GREAT games out FAST), it is goign to be a running war between the 360 and the Wii. Also I am willing to bet we will see Wii on shelves faster then we did for the 360, but simply b/c their production is going much better then the 360 did at launch.

Re:

[Frostclaw (1006995)]

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.

Re:What you mean ...

[Chris Burke (6130)]

Okay, put down the Sony-brand crack pipe which only smokes Sony-brand proprietary crack.

If what you're after is marketshare, then selling out is irrelevent if the number of units you sold was not enough to get you the marketshare you needed. If I had one Burke-brand computer to sell, and someone bought it, could I claim Dell, who still has ample supplies, was losing to my hot seller?

Microsoft selling 1.1 million units without selling out is a good thing, as it means their production is ample and there is still strong demand for the console. At over 10mil units sold, they have a substantial lead in the console wars, giving them all-important momentum. There is no rational way to say that Microsoft isn't winning right now.

Wii had decent production, but the fact that they sold 1.1 million consoles and were sold out is a bad thing, as it means more people wanted to buy the Wii but couldn't, artificially limiting their market share. Each console they produce now is going to satisfy the backlog -- I have a couple family members whose Christmas present was "the promise of a Wii when we can get one". While this means in the longer term they have decent potential marketshare, they're still stuck way behind Microsoft and they are not going to be able to catch up any time soon as production continues to limit sales. Though at least they sold more than Sony.

Sony had terrible production, and sold fewer consoles than everyone else. Being sold out is a bad thing as they are now in 3rd place. Unless their production suddenly shifts into impossible-mega-drive to make up the extra 500,000 units they didn't have to sell this Christmas, their position in 3rd place is solidified through most of 2007. The worst news for Sony, though, is the reports that they aren't sold out any longer and PS3s are sitting on shelves, meaning there weren't enough "we'll buy one as soon as it becomes available" to take up the new production and help them make up lost ground. There could be a lot of reasons -- though only Sony-brand crack could make you believe that price wasn't a major one -- but if this trend continues and Sony doesn't do something, then you're looking at the loser of this generation. Certainly, as of right now, they are behind.

Re:

[MeanderingMind (884641)]

I think a lot of people laughed at Bill Gates when he claimed Microsoft was winning the console war. While what he said is rather hard to argue against, it seems rather premature to claim victory when the race has really just started.

However, it has been noted time and time again that while the Wii can coexist with the 360, the PS3, or both the same can not readily be said of the 360 and the PS3. While it is possible they both will survive and even do well this generation, it is just as if not more likely t

Re:

[acomj (20611)]

http://www.plocp.com/images/vista_MG_3800.jpg [plocp.com]

seeing as ps2 games where going for 200->300 peso (2-3$)in mexico right next to the PC software, I'd say piracy is alive and well.

I had my doubts but after traveling abroad a lot this year (armenia and central america), I'd say piracy is actually a more significant concern than I'd previously though.

No, they lost 'new console launches'

[Chris Burke (6130)]

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.