News: NPD Group Releases June, 2007 U.S. Console Sales Numbers

 

NPD just released their console sales numbers for the U.S., for June, 2007.  The next-gen console sales for the month were:

XBox 360: 198,400

PS3: 98,500

Wii: 381,000

The Wii continues to trample over everything in its path throughout the month of June.  For those who pay attention, it appears as though the numbers are up overall this month.  NPD uses a 4-5-4 accounting system, which means that the "months" aren't months in a classical sense.  Each month is based on a 4 or 5 week period that only remotely relates to actual months.  June happens to be a five week month, so the numbers are naturally higher.

The PS3 maintained its rather lackluster trend of the last couple of months, however this is data from right before the long-rumored price drop went into effect.  Next month could be very telling, as PS3 sales are reportedly up 135% or so since the price cut.  Systems are also sold out many places, so hopefully once availability evens out, the numbers will be even better.  As an aside, PS2 and PSP sales were very strong for the month, selling over 270,000 and 290,000 units respectively.

As you can see from the chart above, the PS3 is currently running about 25% below the trend line of the XBox 360 in the U.S. (Microsoft's home territory), so the price cut on these shores definitely was needed at this time.  Given that the sales were pretty much even until rumors of the price cut started, hopefully many people were just taking a wait-and-see approach and holding off their purchase until the price cut went into effect.

Obviously, the XBox 360 has been out considerably longer than the other consoles, so in the interests of fairness, here is a chart that shows the total sales of the consoles over their lifetimes.

Obviously, in terms of total consoles sold in the U.S., Microsoft still has a fairly significant lead over both other systems, although the Wii is catching up very rapidly.  Given the recent PS3 price cut and news of XBox 360 reliability problems, the next couple of months will be interesting to watch to see what the end effect will be on console sales.