Analysts: November game sales up slightly

Michael Pachter and Evan Wilson predict 5-7 percent software uptick, despite a trimmed post-Thanksgiving reporting period.

Later this week, the NPD Group will report on US retail sales performance for the month of November. While the NPD numbers typically offer a reliable year-over-year comparison on how the industry is doing, November's tally will be slightly problematic. Whereas November 2007 included roughly a week of post-Thanksgiving sales, last month included only 48 hours of the all-important shopping season.

Despite the skewed comparison, a pair of analysts agree that software sales will continue their upward climb by 5 to 7 percent. Coming in on the high side of estimates, Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter believes the industry took in $1.4 billion in sales during November.

There were no surprises in what drove sales for the month, according to Pachter's assessment. Activision's Call of Duty: World at War sold an estimated 2 million units in the US during the month. Other top performers included Guitar Hero World Tour (900,000 combined units), Rock Band 2 (350,000), Wii Fit (750,000), and Gears of War 2, which Microsoft boasted sold 3 million units worldwide earlier this month.

Because NPD's report only includes console and handheld software, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King won't factor into the month's tally. Be that as it may, Pachter believes the game sold like gangbusters, shifting 1.7 million units in the US. (Shortly after its release, Activision said the game had sold a record-setting 2.8 million units worldwide in its first 24 hours.)

Pachter also took a crack at hardware numbers. The Wedbush Morgan analyst believes that Nintendo has at long last delivered on its promise to ramp up Wii production and will subsequently see 1.4 million units of the popular console flying off shelves. The Xbox 360 will continue to capitalize on its price cut from September, Pachter believes, with an additional 800,000 units selling in November. The PlayStation 3 is also expected to see a small uptick in sales, with Pachter predicting 400,000 units sold on the month.

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson saw November shake out in much the same way. In all, Wilson predicts a 5 percent year-over-year growth in November (again, due to the shorter reporting period), with total US software sales topping out at $1.37 billion. However, the analyst notes that were the reporting period normalized against last year, software sales were actually up 18 percent.

While many of Wilson's software unit sales predictions were in step with Pachter's, the Pacific Crest analyst was a bit more bullish on Call of Duty: World at War. Thanks largely to an increased console installed base and a strong precedent established by Call of Duty 4, Wilson believes World at War shifted 2.25 million units in its debut month, outpacing its higher-rated predecessor by a full 200,000 units.

Wilson also called out the commendable performance of the EA Partners-published, Valve-developed Left 4 Dead, labeling the shooter's 350,000-unit showing a "positive surprise." The analyst, who has been critical of EA in the past, also took the publisher to task for not further capitalizing on the title's potential by porting it to the PS3.

"One of EA's biggest mistakes for the holidays is that it--not Valve--was primarily responsible for getting Left 4 Dead ported to the PS3 for the holiday season, but the company could not or did not due to resource constraints," said Wilson. "Given the game's sales, it would have been a surefire hit, although it would have had a lower margin because the intellectual property is externally owned."

39 Comments

  • novalightning

    Posted Dec 13, 2008 1:06 am PT

    no matter how much the economy is in a downward sprial i believe that gaming, no matter what console you choose, will still continue to be a solid seller. I am more likely to spend my money on a xbox game than go out to the movies or to a theam park.

  • trw534

    Posted Dec 12, 2008 5:46 pm PT

    i want call of duty 5

  • goldeneye_basic

    Posted Dec 12, 2008 2:21 am PT

    passi2005, sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you were bashing Valve. Notorious fanboy Darkride66 complained about Valve's lack of support for the PS3. He definitely was bashing Valve. I thought you were doing the same.

    CureForLiving, programmers may like a challenge, but management likes to make money, and they are the ones that run the company. This is done by increasing revenue as well as keeping costs low. Valve would increase revenue by porting Left For Dead to the PS3, but would the increased profit be greater than the cost to port it? Plus, once that is done, would they have to lay off the extra programmers? I'm sure they have analyzed the costs vs. benefits in that case. Valve is in business to make money, not to favor one company over another.

  • trickyspider

    Posted Dec 12, 2008 1:27 am PT

    LOL face it now bs3 fanboys.. all the games on 360 are doing good as.. and they make the charts even if they are multi platform.. L4D is awesome!!!!

  • passi2005

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 10:57 pm PT

    haha, no i'm not whining about the ps3 not getting left 4 dead. i hate the ps3! my message was intended to point out that alot of developers dislike the ps3 in general And ontop of the Valve is a great company. they dont' release crap.

  • danielreader22

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 8:06 pm PT

    @norman bell,

    360 sucks ASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

  • onething77

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 5:49 pm PT

    I hope the gaming industry keeps moving forward and doesn't lose too much momentum.

  • endocrine

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 5:15 pm PT

    I am shocked that the gaming industry grew this month.....ohhh wait, i am not. For all this negative news about the gaming industry lately, they sure are making alot of money.

  • Shadowflame291

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 2:00 pm PT

    *insert generic fanboy comment here*

  • Tebbit

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 1:48 pm PT

    iuns: I think there may be a more deep-seated reason why halo didn't come to the PS3

  • norman_bell

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 1:35 pm PT

    X-BOX 360 FOR LIFE

  • fanboy999

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 1:02 pm PT

    PS3 owners can play it on PC for less anyways.

  • iuns

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 12:53 pm PT

    Monkeywrentch127 has a point, its common knowledge that is is extremely hard to make a PS3 game, hence why they didn't get left for dead. Or gears, or halo, or any other game with guns in it....

  • R41N_M4K3R posted Dec 11, 2008 12:49 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    R41N_M4K3R

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 12:49 pm PT (hide)

    dont need to port it because no one likes the ps3

  • GhostStalkerX1

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 12:23 pm PT

    I know its off subject but..........WTB a new Counter Strike game haha.

  • grognard

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 11:44 am PT

    These are just analyst projections, not actual numbers. Wait for tonight's actual NPD figures so you really have something tangible to argue about!

  • runstalker

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 11:21 am PT

    I'm all about Left 4 Dead on PC, but PS3 owners shouldn't be left out in the cold on this fine title. Port it, EA, and soon.

  • rwbojorquez

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 10:13 am PT

    why so much comments about "L4D not ps3" who cares. Most likely you can play it on your PC.

  • MonkeyWrench127

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 10:06 am PT

    People are forgetting Valve are a PC developer and therefore their main aim is PC. I agree with what is said by many below, the 306 is similar to the PC so Left 4 Dead was easily ported, but the PS3 is such a b*tch to develop for and so different that it made sense to get the game out before xmas on two consoles and maybe release a ps3 later on next year

  • Merl57

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 6:18 am PT

    The big titles will always due well as long as we are not waiting in soup lines but its the small publishers that will hurt

  • ParisSun

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 5:31 am PT

    CureForLiving is just pulling stuff out of his behind. To just say Vavle employees are just doing a job is ridiculous. You don't know any of these people and have had no direct contact with them. Unless you worked in the Vavle offices next to these people and can say you have witnessed their work habits first hand, then you are just defaming these people.

  • ctburesch

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 4:37 am PT

    SWATMAN4,,,resistance 2 had mediocre sales....

  • ctburesch

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 4:35 am PT

    CureForLiving ..No the ceo of Valve dislikes the PS3 as he used to work for Microsoft. He has openly said before that the PS3 is a waste of time.

  • Makaatsu

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 12:54 am PT

    Actually Gamespot your wrong (again). The sales for the PS3 are actually down compared to last November. If it sold 400k this month it is down 66k from the same month last year as it sold 466k in Nov 2007.
    Here is your own website
    http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6184008.html

    Obviously compared to october things will be up, november has the busiest week in the sales buisness, to not go up in sales from that month would mean your company is in deep brown stuff.

  • CureForLiving posted Dec 11, 2008 12:38 am PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    CureForLiving

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 12:38 am PT (hide)

    Its not that valve hates ps3, they just don't have the skills to dev for it, most people in development jobs (programmers etc) enjoy a new challenge, other like the people at valve I imagine, are just doing a job, having to constantly update their skills for pc they probably don't feel like doing a bit of extra work and learning how to develop for the ps3.

  • goldeneye_basic

    Posted Dec 11, 2008 12:20 am PT

    passi2005, Valve is a small PC video game company. All of their products are based on Half-Life. They include the Half-Life series, Counter-Strike series, Day of Defeat series, Team Fortress series, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. They did port some of their early games to consoles like the PS2 and Xbox, but their focus is on the PC, not consoles. The Xbox 360 is very similar to programming for a PC, but the PS3 is much different. So it is much easier to have their relatively small workforce work on both the PC and 360. Yeah, Gabe Newell may have said he favors the 360 over the PS3, but part of that bias is from a business point of view. They really don't have the resources to port their games to the PS3. They don't have any games other that what is based on Half-Life and their newer Source engine. SMALL COMPANY.

    If you can afford a PS3, then you can afford a cheap PC that can play most of Valve's games. I highly recommend doing that. Steam is an outstanding free on-line service, that in my opinion, is better than Xbox Live. It consolidates all of your games into one easy to launch place. It automatically updates all of your games for free, including the DLC that 360 users have to pay for. You have a friends chat list that tells you a ton of stats such as when they were last on-line, what games they've played, their achievements, what server they are currently playing on and only have to click one thing to join them, etc... You can buy almost 500 games through Steam, which are sometimes discounted as much as 90%. You can choose what server you want to play on. Mute mic spammers. Run your own server or be an admin on a friend's server and kick abusive players. There are far fewer annoying people than on both consoles' on-line services for those reasons. At the very least, it is easy to avoid them. You can play user created mods (free). Have an almost unlimited supply of free maps to most of the multiplayer games. Create your own maps. I can keep going on and on. Did I mention it is free? Valve is one of the best video game makers ever with outstanding free upgrades and support, so you are doing the gaming community a great disservice whining that Valve doesn't port its products to the PS3.

  • passi2005

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 8:59 pm PT

    Valve hates the ps3. that's why it won't port it. and why they didn't make orange box for the ps3. EA had to port it internally. Gabe newell openly critisized the ps3 in the past (look up his past interviews). his latest interview claims that they don't have the internal resources to port it themselves but it's lie. he still hates the ps3. dont' believe me? look up his past interviews about how he feels about the ps3.

  • Media_Mind posted Dec 10, 2008 8:48 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    Media_Mind

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 8:48 pm PT (hide)

    Yeah, who doesn't want a red-ringer 360? Its not like xbox has any original ip's since Gears of War.

  • spacer69

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 8:37 pm PT

    ALL who want to play Left 4 Dead buy a real game console and get a Xbox 360

  • danielreader22 posted Dec 10, 2008 8:16 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    danielreader22

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 8:16 pm PT (hide)

    No Left 4 Dead for PS3? Why not?

  • jay_883

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 7:58 pm PT

    darn i would have loved to play left 4 dead on the ps3.

  • hatieshorrer

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 7:15 pm PT

    I have to ask if game sales are increasing why are companies like EA announcing lower then predicted sales and laying off workers.

  • gamist

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 7:09 pm PT

    So many great games..., so little time...

  • SWATMAN4

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 7:02 pm PT

    Where's Resistance 2?!?!?!?!?!?!?! That game must have had great sales since the first was the best rated game at the PS3's debut a few years ago

  • Pete5506

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 6:20 pm PT

    Dang to bad for PS3 gamers, not getting Left 4 Dead

  • TheArcade

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 6:15 pm PT

    I wonder why they couldn't port Left 4 Dead to the PS3. Resource constraints can't be their only reason.

  • _JPH_

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 6:10 pm PT

    EA ported HL2 Episode 2 to the PS3 and look how bad that looked. Why port L4D to the PS3? It would look worse and doesn't much increase in sales. L4D is amazingly well balanced for a multiplayer game. And one of the most enjoyable too.

  • godzillavskong

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 5:33 pm PT

    Almost too many good games out their to buy this holiday season. It also seems like the Wii is recession proof. I'm glad my kids have a 360, that way I can buy them all these new games and boost my gamerscore along the way.

  • goskateboard

    Posted Dec 10, 2008 5:29 pm PT

    hmmmmm. left 4 dead still not coming to ps3 yet?

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