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

 

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

XBox 360: 1,260,000 

PS3: 797,000

Wii: 1,350,000

Sony’s decision not to drop the base price of the PS3 for this holiday season has definitely cost them many sales this year.  Given the current economic climate within the US, a $399 (base price) console is going to have serious issues selling against lower priced competitors.  Of course, given the value of the dollar against the yen, it would have cost them significantly to lower the price, but Sony has essentially decided to give up on their effort to outsell the Xbox 360 in the U.S. this year.

The recent price break has been beneficial to the XBox 360, allowing it to beat the PS3 in America for the first month since April.  Nintendo, of course, continues to prove that casual gamers (and even so-called “nongamers”) can actually be a far more profitable group than the “typical gamers” and hardcore gamers that Microsoft and Sony are fighting over.

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

As I mentioned above, the combination of a price cut on the Xbox 360 and Sony’s decision not to follow suit has caused the PS3 to fall slightly behind the XBox 360 in the U.S. for the year.  The much bigger story, though, is that the Nintendo Wii has outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined this year in the U.S.

Still, the XBox 360 has been out a year longer than the other consoles, so here is a chart that shows the total U.S. sales of the consoles over their lifetimes.

The PS3 continues to follow the XBox 360 line fairly closely, only a year behind.  The Wii, meanwhile, has slaughtered everything in its path and will easily beat the XBox 360 to 20 million units sold in the U.S. sometime next year.

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.

On the worldwide stage, the PS3 has done a far better job of eating into the Xbox 360’s year long head start, long ago surpassing the system in Japan, and is very close to catching it throughout the rest of the world… except, of course, the U.S.

The Wii, though, is an even greater runaway success, beating both other systems in all three markets, and accounting for nearly 50% of all “next-gen” systems sold.

It would take a miracle for either other system to make a play at overtaking the Wii in the next year.  At this point, Sony has their eyes set on gaining ground and possibly overtaking the 360 (at least in worldwide sales), and Microsoft is just reevaluating their position in the market.  Given the QA problems and costs involved in continually repairing systems, any shot the 360 had of being profitable for the company is about shot – and Microsoft shareholders (unlike the company’s fanbase) has very little patience with both the negative press from the problems and loss of shareholder value the Xbox division has brought upon the company.