NPD Group Releases May, 2008 U.S. Console Sales Numbers

 

NPD has released their console sales numbers for the U.S., for May, 2008.  The next-gen console sales for the month were:

XBox 360: 186,800 

PS3: 208,700

Wii: 675,100

Nintendo has certainly become the comeback kid this generation.  Once again, the Wii system sold more than three times as many systems in the US as the nearest competitor in the month of May.  What must be especially troubling to both Sony and Microsoft, though, is that this happened in the month that was supposed to provide the GTA IV bump. 

While both versions of GTA IV (the game) sold VERY well, neither system got an extremely strong sales bump from the game's release.  Still, Sony is likely very happy that they once again beat Microsoft's offering in the U.S.

The above graph shows how well each of the three next-gen systems sold in the U.S. so far in 2008.

Obviously, the tremendous success of the Wii is the major story to take away from the above graph, but its also interesting to see that in 2008 the PS3 has outsold the Xbox 360 in the U.S.  While that has been true for awhile if you look at worldwide numbers, its finally true within the U.S., which is Microsoft's home territory.

A number of factors likely contributed to Sony's turnaround within the U.S. market.  Notably, though, Blu-ray has become the single high-def disc standard and AAA games have started to appear for the console with greater frequency.  Also, it's possible that Microsoft's system has plateaud, having been on the market longer than the other two systems.

Speaking of being out a year longer... here is a chart that shows the total U.S. sales of the consoles over their lifetimes.

Barring a completely unthinkable event, the Wii will officially overtake the Xbox 360 in terms of total systems sold in the U.S. next month, bringing an end to Microsoft's year-long head start advantage.

The PS3 still has a long way to go in the U.S. to catch up to the other two systems, but with the continuing success of Blu-ray, the system's future looks bright.

As many people have been asking me about worldwide sales numbers, I'll go ahead and provide a screengrab from VGChartz below.  While VGChartz' data is certainly interesting to look at, it must be noted that they have a smaller sample of data to work from than the NPD data for the U.S., and that they have to attempt to extrapolate data worldwide.  As such, it must be assumed that the data is somewhat less accurate than the NPD data.

So, worldwide, we can see that the PS4 trails the other two systems by a fair margin, but it has been far more competitive in Europe and Japan than it has so far in the U.S.  Certainly, the current state of the U.S. economy isn't helping matters any, but things are still starting to look up.