NPD Sales Results for November 2009

Overall

"The industry declined 7.6% versus last November, but still produced enough revenue to make this month the second-best November in industry history. YTD the industry is still up 7% over 2007. I think we all have to realize the incredible year that was 2008."

"Based on seasonality the industry looks like it will reach $20B for the year, which means December would have to be up over last year by 11%. Impossible? I don't think so. More positive economic news combined with 'frugal fatigue' could positively impact industry sales during these last weeks of the holiday season. Breaking even seems more out of reach. In order to break even to last year, December sales would have to be up 36% over December 2008."

"There was even heavier promotional activity this year than normal, and while they seem to have benefitted hardware sales, they don't appear to have positively impacted software sales since unit sales of software are down even more than dollar sales are for that category."

Hardware

"All hardware systems realized an increase over October but one would expect that from seasonality alone . I was really impressed by the performance of the PS2, which after 109 months in market is still experiencing strong sales (Nov'09 unit sales of over 200K - only a small decline from last November) ."

"While there has been a lot of focus on Wii sales as compared to last year, the system was still the best-selling console system by a margin of 54%. At this same point in the PS2 lifecycle, the PS2 was down in unit sales by 23% over the previous year, but as history has shown, it continues to have a great deal of life left in it. So focusing on a comparison to Wii's stellar 2008 performance masks the reality of just how well this system is selling."

"The PS3 realized the greatest increase over last year's November sales and had its third best month in unit sales ever, coming in just under Decembers '07 and '08."

Software

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has achieved the top spot for first-month sales of any game at the title level. Halo 3 previously held the spot when it sold 3.3 million units in September '07 in 12 days at retail. MW2 bested Halo 3's daily sales rate by 16% in its 19 days at retail in November."

"While this year's top-selling item bested last year's by 283%, it couldn't make up for softness elsewhere. The top 50 games this year sold 5% less units than did the top 50 last year."