NPD: Wii sales top 2M during $2.9B month

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted Dec 11, 2008 4:39 pm PT

[UPDATE] Nintendo's console reigns supreme in hardware, more than doubling Xbox 360; Gears 2, COD: World at War top software; top-20 games.

Recession may be on the tip of everyone's tongues, but consumers' appetite for the interactive medium continues largely unabated. Industry stat-tracking firm The NPD Group today released its assessment for US gaming retail sales in November. Industry sales were up 10 percent year-over-year. Domestic sales of hardware, software, and accessories reached $2.91 billion for the month, pushing 2008's total just over the $16 billion threshold.

2,040,000 units in one month.

November 2008's 10 percent sales growth is especially impressive, considering that last month's tally contained seven fewer post-Thanksgiving shopping days compared to a year ago. One huge reason for the surge was the Wii. With an analyst-noted surge in supply, Nintendo's console more than doubled its 2007 numbers, selling more than 2.04 million units. The Nintendo DS also proved staggeringly popular, shifting 1.57 million units on the month.

While lodged firmly in third place in hardware sales for November, Microsoft made huge gains over rival Sony last month. Xbox 360 sales more than doubled those of the PlayStation 3, with Microsoft's console outselling Sony's system 836,000 units to 378,000. Sony's depth bolstered the company's performance, however, with PSP sales hitting 421,000 units and the aging PlayStation 2 managing 206,000 systems.

On the software side, Microsoft and Epic Games' sci-fi third-person shooter Gears of War 2 took the gold, reaching sales of 1.56 million units in November. That figure represents just over half of the title's global haul, which Microsoft pegged at 3 million earlier this week. Activision's Call of Duty: World at War, which also debuted last month, fell just shy of Gears 2's tally on a platform-by-platform basis, with the Xbox 360 edition seeing sales of 1.41 million units and the PS3 game selling an additional 597,000 copies.

Nintendo's Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Mario Kart Wii had another commendable month at retail, snagging the third, fourth, and fifth slots in November's chart with a respective 796,000, 697,000, and 637,000 units. While the rhythm genre was decidedly underrepresented in October, Activision's Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii and Wii Music both surged in November, logging respective sales of 475,000 units and 297,000 copies.

Other strong performers for the month include the Xbox 360 edition of Valve's Left 4 Dead (410,000 units) and Insomniac Games' flagship PS3-exclusive shooter Resistance 2 (385,000 units).

Though the NPD Group does not include PC titles in its monthly report, Frazier also noted that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King enjoyed stellar sales for the month. "We would be remiss not to point out the strength of PC game sales this month as lead by the release of the latest World of Warcraft expansion pack," said Frazier. "Wrath of the Lich King sold over 1.4 million units in the US during its debut month at retail." Worldwide, the game sold more than 2.8 million copies in just 24 hours.

[UPDATE] On Friday, NPD expanded its list of the top console and handheld software sold in November to include the 20 best-selling games. Of note, October's top title--the Xbox 360-exclusive Fable II--saw a substantial drop in sales, falling to 19 on the chart. Another big drop came by way of Bethesda's Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360, which fell nine spots to 12.

US VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY - NOVEMBER 2008
Software: $1.45B (+11%)
Hardware: $1.21B (+10%)
Accessories: $255M (+7%)
Total Games: $2.91B (10%)

TOP-SELLING HARDWARE - NOVEMBER 2008
Wii--2.04 million
Nintendo DS--1.57 million
Xbox 360--836,000
PlayStation Portable--421,000
PlayStation 3--378,000
PlayStation 2--206,000

TOP-SELLING SOFTWARE - NOVEMBER 2008
Title / Publisher / Units*
1) Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) / Microsoft / 1,560,000
2) Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360) / Activision Blizzard / 1,410,000
3) Wii Play w/ Remote (WII) / Nintendo / 796,000
4) Wii Fit w/ Balance Board (WII) / Nintendo / 697,000
5) Mario Kart Wii w/ Wheel (WII) / Nintendo / 637,000
6) Call of Duty: World at War (PS3) / Activision Blizzard / 597,000
7) Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii) / Activision Blizzard / 475,000
8) Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts / 410,000
9) Resistance 2 (PS3) / Sony / 385,000
10) Wii Music / Nintendo / 297,000
11) Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) / Nintendo
12) Fallout 3 (Xbox 360) / Bethesda Softworks
13) Rock Band (Wii) / MTV Games
14) Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia (DS) / Nintendo
15) Guitar Hero World Tour (Xbox 360) / Activision Blizzard
16) Mario Kart (DS) / Nintendo
17) Guitar Hero World Tour (PS2) / Activision Blizzard
18) WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 (PS2) / THQ
19) Fable II (Xbox 360) / Microsoft
20) Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts

* Figures include Collector's Editions and non-hardware bundles.

708 Comments

  • Nicaboy456

    Posted Jan 8, 2009 8:21 pm PT

    hopefully the profit is spent on developing an actual next gen console this time....

  • gudni

    Posted Jan 6, 2009 6:01 pm PT

    Wii play w/ remote is almost 800.000 which is understandable since you only have to pay around 10bucks more and get your extra remote with a game. And most people who have played Wii play agree that it is an ok game for 10bucks.
    Is there a site that i can see the sales of extra controllers for the 360 and PS3?

  • silentmage_245

    Posted Jan 6, 2009 4:13 am PT

    God of War 3? Itsa PS3 exclusive.

  • monlosez

    Posted Dec 19, 2008 3:26 pm PT

    Just look at the software sales for PS3, you wonder why PS3 is losing most of their exclusives because they can't sale softwares. Tekken 6 and Final Fantasy XIII are coming to Xbox 360. Those are only two I am looking for in PS3. Rest aren't even close to Xbox 360's exclusives.

  • zig_star

    Posted Dec 19, 2008 3:28 am PT

    Ok most Wii games suck but the console sells well, I'm confused

  • Media_Mind

    Posted Dec 18, 2008 2:03 pm PT

    Now I'm curious what next-gen systems will be like...

  • JYoung103175

    Posted Dec 18, 2008 8:47 am PT

    No fan boy here, but I have owned all three systems, still own 2 of them (sold the xbox360). Hands down, for me, Playstation 3 takes the cake. I do like the Wii when people are over, and besides Mario Galaxy. not something I really play by myself. Wii is selling well because its directed towards children(which im a big one at 33) and also the revolutionary controller, Xbox is outselling playstation because it is cheaper and we are in a recession. As more eclusives come out, and blue ray officially takes over the universe, watch as the playstation 3 climbs. I know people who own ps3s just for the blue ray player. Its got free online play, great graphics, looks slicker, and just kicks a$$ in my opinion. I think when the war is over, Wii will win which is a no brainer, but PS3 will outdo the 360. My personal opionion. Only reason I will even miss my 360 is because I want to play Gears 2 because I love 1, but I can always rent or borrow one to take care of that itch, other then that, I could care less about another Halo!

  • snaggleoooo

    Posted Dec 18, 2008 2:46 am PT

    @ nintendokid
    You maybe right that the XBL servers are unified and the PSN's are not and that the PSN is copying much of the XBL features, but we're not paying for it. I am very happy with the standard of the PSN. I've never suffered from lag, as have the vast majority of PSN users. We get a good service for nothing, while you pay for a service only slightly better. Also, you're saying all non-subscription fee MMO's are terrible. I played WoW and I hated it, yet I've played Guild Wars, which has no fee, which has got great ratings and still enjoy after almost 3 years, as have the more than 5 million others that play the game.

  • King_of_Gamez3

    Posted Dec 17, 2008 7:41 pm PT

    Lukemaneiro I completely agree with you.... this has nothing to do with console wars...each console is good in its own ways and its bad in its own ways...i really don't get why people are agrueing about these things...they are all great

  • Lukemaneiro

    Posted Dec 17, 2008 4:28 pm PT

    Omg THIS IS NOT A CONSOLE WAR TOPIC! All consoles are GREAT. And stop whining about "my console has better graphics". If you want graphics, then get a gaming PC.

  • MoparAddict

    Posted Dec 17, 2008 3:04 pm PT

    Man, all those people saying one system is better than another; look at the stats, they can't be wrong. If you think they're I guess the world population must be as well.

  • tigerlegend76

    Posted Dec 17, 2008 7:26 am PT

    Let's hope that nintendo take their profits and invest them into a technically superior version of the wii for the next gen of consoles.

  • wiiplay1

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 7:56 pm PT

    I still don't understand why Wii Play is still selling like crazy. I always see it on store shelfs. Besides the Wii Remote, it is almost worthless. Here is a tip: Only buy it if you need another Wii Remote and/or want to sell it on Ebay.

  • PrinceofSarcasm

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 7:30 pm PT

    @ xdeiri. "PSN beinging so laggy that its almost inaccessible", how dare you even think of calling someone else a fanboy. PSN is fine so stop trying to justify 50$ a year. All you have is cross game voice chat but we get much more with home

  • srdjan311

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 7:25 pm PT

    dang nintendo is rockin it this gen

  • nintendokid

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 10:43 am PT

    @KingOfOldSkool

    http://reelgamers.com/games/online.html
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2QEx8r3bDQ

    You're connection speed doesn't matter if the server source is low bandwidth. When no one is paying you (or you choose not to charge) to do something for them, there is no incentive to push you to work harder than you have to.

    Case in point: XBL has been a pay-to-use service from the beginning. It was never free and even during development and planning they decided it would not be free. The reason is because they wanted to really do a get job and get paid for it along the way. They showed how to properly do online gaming. Their domination of online gaming also pushed Sony to implement that into their games.

    The reason why PSN keeps getting better each and everyday is because they have the XBL gold standed to look at and say "We need to do this better like XBL. We need to do it this way to make it better than theirs."

  • debo55

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 6:07 am PT

    The Wii does have a pretty weak game library, but I don't think the people who buy the Wii are as critical of game quality as most of the hardcore gamers out there...Look at Wii Sports...Not a deep and complicated game by any means, but sometimes is just fun to swing a controller at the tv.

    As far as the online system, each has its drawbacks. Xbox Live is a better overall service (Gamespot and IGN writers will tell you that, and I think they would know) but it costs money. PSN is free, but is not as rounded (although they are trying to go in that direction). Sony took a gamble with the PS3...They bet that people would be so loyal to the playstation name that they would pay more (and get more) for their system. So far that hasn't happened but it's still early. I don't even think the numbers are the big issue...The thing that gets me is how many developers are going from exclusive Sony titles to appearing on the 360. They're going to go where the money is, and strictly from a numbers standpoint right now, thats the 360.

  • drsnobby

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 3:05 am PT

    @lingofoldskool,just to be fair home will be saturated with ads more so than xbox live

  • drsnobby

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 2:56 am PT

    @kingofoldskool,last xmas was due to user overload,millions of new xbox live subscribers logging on at the same time overwhelming the system.don,t try to spin the story you know what happened LOL

  • KingOfOldSkool

    Posted Dec 16, 2008 1:35 am PT

    What I find so funny is how XBL fanboys accuse those who defend the Playstation network of not using XBL that much when in fact it is probably the other way around. I have plenty of experience with both networks and find the differences negligible at best. @nintendokid - umm.. yeah.. maybe you should spend more time analyzing your slow home network than blaming Sony.You know.. for an infrastructure that is blown by so many it certainly likes to have plenty of holiday season failures like last like December when the XBL network was down for a while. @xdeiri - Yeah.. "pay" for your XBL gold while still seeing an excessive amount of ad's..

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