Game Sales Up As Madden Leads Charge

Thanks to Reuters for their report that last month's video game sales rose 4 percent from August 2002, due in significant part to EA's Madden NFL 2004, which "...sold 1.45 million units on the PS2 and 310,000 units on the Xbox in the month, generating sales of more than $86 million. Sales of Madden for GameCube were negligible." There were new figures on hardware sales, too, as "PS2 sold 291,000 units in August to bring its installed base in the United States to 18.8 million, while... Xbox sold 144,000 units to rise to 5.8 million and... GameCube sold 100,000 units to 4.5 million." Analysts suggested that PS2 sales "continue to lag behind expectations" (1 million short of the 9.5 million hoped), and predicted that Nintendo will "...introduce their own bundle or price cut by the end of September" (scanned early-October print ads for a major US retailer have the GameCube at $99.)

Re:GameCube Owners & Sports

[Textbook Error]

Although these figures are just for North America, American/Canadian sports games (hockey, basketball, American football, nascar, etc) always sell badly outside of North America.

Everywhere else the "global" sports like F1 or soccer tend to do a lot better (e.g., soccer games like Championship Manager [sigames.com] sell by the truckload everywhere but the US).

I think this goes some way to explaining the Xbox's lacklustre sales in the other two big video game territories (Europe and Asia: just behind the GC in Europe, behind just about everything in Asia). Different cultures prefer different things, and the Xbox is very much a product of the US (the PS2 did well everywhere because it was out there first, and had an installed base of existing Playstation owners to sell into).

Re:GameCube Owners & Sports

[Scyber]

Well I own a PS2 and a GC. I bought the PS2 version due to the Online capabilities that are abset in the GC version.

Gamecube version victim of Multiple console owners

[Dormous]

I think I know the reason that the gamecube sales are so low for Madden. For the first time, people own multiple consoles. I, for example, own both a PS2 and a GameCube. If I was going to buy Madden 2004, which console do you think I would buy it for, PS2 or GC? PS2 of course. Why? Online play. All the online game review sites have said that the PS2 version is the best because it is the only one that offers online play, even the Xbox one doesn't offer that (Which is why PS2 sales of madden are almost 5 times that of the Xbox). Another Example: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. 2 Versions, GC & PS2. I bought PS2. Why? All the reviews said the GC version was flawed. What have I bought For GC. Nintendo titles. F-Zero GX, Super Smash Bros., Metroid Prime, Super Mario Sunshine. The only non-Nintendo title I have for GC is Rogue Squadron 2. Why, because all the other titles are BETTER on the other platforms, and Nintendo's in house titles kick butt on their own. Sorry, didn't mean to rant. Just saw something obvious and thought I'd point it out. Dormous Listening @ the door of IT.