NPD: Fable II hits 1.2 in US, MGS4 goes platinum

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Jan 27, 2009 3:07 pm PT

Final 2008 sales figures paint mixed picture for PS3, 360 exclusives, as Resistance 2, Little Big Planet score 600K while Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts unscrews only 140K.

When industry research firm the NPD Group released its final 2008 sales figures earlier this month, the US software best-seller list was topped by four Wii titles. The remote-bundled Wii Play was the top title of the year with 5.28 million units, followed by Mario Kart Wii (5.0 million units), the balance-board-accompanied Wii Fit (4.53 million units), and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (4.17 million units). In fact, according to recent NPD data analysis by industry site Gamasutra, 49 percent of all games sold in the US last year were for a Nintendo console.

The Wii's domination of the software charts pushed almost every exclusive for another console out of the top 10 list. The sole exception was Gears of War 2 for the Xbox 360. The sequel to Epic Games' highly regarded Blockbuster sold just over 2.31 million copies, thanks to rave reviews, a dedicated fan base, and Microsoft's massive marketing machine.

Though Gears 2's success was no surprise, given the steady drumbeat of sales-milestones announcements, it was less clear how Xbox 360 exclusives outside the top 10 fared. NPD provided final 2008 US sales figures to GameSpot for two 360-only titles from Microsoft's internal studio system: Lionhead's Fable II and Rare's Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. The difference between the two was striking: The former RPG sold 1.2 million units, while the latter eked out a mere 140,000 units in US sales (a fact that isn't stopping Banjo-Tooie from hitting Xbox Live in April). According to the story mentioned above, 360 and original Xbox games made up 19 percent of US software sales in 2008.

The year's top PlayStation 3 exclusive didn't quite match Gears 2, a fact to be expected given the console's smaller installed base and its one fewer year on the market. Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, GameSpot's 2008 Game of the Year, was the biggest exclusive for Sony's platform, racking up over 1 million in domestic sales. In June, Sony Computer Entertainment president and CEO Kaz Hirai said the game had sold 3 million units worldwide in the two weeks after its release. Some 500,000 copies of MGS4 sold in Japan during its debut week, while 775,000 units were bought during its first 18 days on the US market.

Unfortunately for Sony, its first-party PS3 exclusives didn't fare quite as well. Despite substantial hype and solid reviews, Media Molecule's quirky platformer Little Big Planet sold only 611,000 units in the US--just less than half its global 1.3 million total. Insomniac's Resistance 2, which wowed critics as much as rival Gears 2, sold only about 600,000 units in the US. Sony game sales--including the PS3, PSP, and still-strong PlayStation 2--made up 32 percent of last year's software sales, according to Gamasutra's NPD breakdown.

461 Comments

  • DeckardLee

    Posted Mar 7, 2009 7:25 am PT

    I love it when ignorant people talk about what can and what can't be done with technology that they don't understand

  • qou

    Posted Feb 9, 2009 4:22 pm PT

    Makes sense if you think about it. The wii has a larger fan-base than any of the other consoles. It has little kids and teenagers as well as adults.

  • arbsetbse6

    Posted Feb 8, 2009 4:00 pm PT

    jtthegame316- Dude it's been said a million times, the reason(s) that MGS4 will never come to the 360 have nothing to do with the disc space. Lost Odyseey was 2 discs and it would take maybe 3 or 4 for MGS4 to be on the 360. Granted the game would have to be housed in a special type of game box that I just don't see being made for the 360. But mainly there's two HUGE reasons as to why it won't ever come to the 360. One, Hideo Kojima, the creator and rights owner to all the Metal Gears to this point. He said he will NEVER ever let it go to 360, ever. Ok so thats one. Two is that it wouldn't actually run on 360. The 360 processors can't operate the Octocamo in the game. The processors aren't capable of handling it, would heat up too much, cause warping, and bam! Red ring of death. So just do me a favor, don't start spouting that "PS3 fanboys" are protecting this title, it's main halt is the technology. Besides I don't take anyone's comments seriously who even mention the word "fanboy". It's such an irrelevant term that just expresses the commenters pure ignorance and lack of debating skills towards a valid point in an argument

    This is pure lies!?
    The reason MGS uses so much space, is because the audio is completely uncompressed. They used that much space up on purpose.

    Oh and Xbox wouldn't melt and RROD it could run MGS, if it was made for the Xbox.

    I'm not a Xbox fanboy, I like both consoles. I just hate people spewing out lies and false information.

  • rav44

    Posted Feb 8, 2009 12:38 pm PT

    PIZZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Xz310

    Posted Feb 2, 2009 11:33 pm PT

    most wii games arn't very good.

  • Xz310

    Posted Feb 2, 2009 11:29 pm PT

    Screw wii and ps3/sony. Fable II!

  • snooker8th

    Posted Feb 1, 2009 12:23 pm PT

    These US sales figures are fairly meaningless. US seems like the only region that is strongly supporting the 360 anymore, im guessing due to the patriotism of it all. Sony and Nintendo are making much larger gains by selling in-house games. 360 has sold a lot of systems in the past year or so, but only by pricing their console down and losing margins.

    I think sooner or later mgs4 will come to 360 though even if it is a watered down version. maybe towards the end of 09. It is a very good game that everyone should be able to play.

    LBP and R2 are both very good games.
    After playing a fair bit of Resistance 2 online i havent really gone back to another shooter except for COD5..
    Platformers are far from dead though, you just need to avoid bad ones like Banjo and Sonic Unleashed!!

  • Lexaeus775

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:10 pm PT

    man, shoot
    mgs4 shud'v been platinum b4 new years...

  • TheArcade

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 5:59 pm PT

    In regards to MGS4 and 360.

    http://g4tv.com/xplay/blog/post/690154/Microsoft_Xbox_360_Can_Handle_MGS_4.html

  • cybergooch

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 5:21 pm PT

    I'm actually surprised to hear that MSG4 has only just now broken the 1 million copy mark. It was definitely the pinnacle title for the PS3 last year and was sure it was an automatic purchase for PS3 owners. I'm still trying to understand part of what FSUJD524 wrote: "The 360 processors can't operate the Octocamo in the game. The processors aren't capable of handling it, would heat up too much, cause warping, and bam! Red ring of death. " So...are you saying that the 360 isn't CAPABLE of running MGS4? I disagree; the game is not WRITTEN to operate on the 360. Konami did a great job working the Cell processors to render beautiful artwork on the screen, but they could of done the same thing on the 360...if they chose to do so. BTW, the Cell processor is just a slightly modified RISC processor, the core version being that of the one found in the 360 (the similarities practicly make them brother and sister.) Sony's only advantage is the Blu-Ray tech that allows for massive storage...and nothing else. As a matter of fact, if you look around a bit, I'm sure you will find article after article that shows the 360 ACTUALLY has better detail rendering the the PS3. Maybe, just maybe, the video cards are the true battleground and MS lucked out by NOT getting an nVidia chipset this go around.

  • puppiemaster

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 4:54 pm PT

    and yet nearly everyone on here says that Wii games dont sell.

  • thekey

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 2:08 pm PT

    guile_charlie For your information I only have a PS3 now. And if a system doesn't have great games and it doesn't sell well you won't be able to enjoy it for long. so sales are inportant. Atleast to me they are...

  • FSUJD524

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 9:43 am PT

    jtthegame316- Dude it's been said a million times, the reason(s) that MGS4 will never come to the 360 have nothing to do with the disc space. Lost Odyseey was 2 discs and it would take maybe 3 or 4 for MGS4 to be on the 360. Granted the game would have to be housed in a special type of game box that I just don't see being made for the 360. But mainly there's two HUGE reasons as to why it won't ever come to the 360. One, Hideo Kojima, the creator and rights owner to all the Metal Gears to this point. He said he will NEVER ever let it go to 360, ever. Ok so thats one. Two is that it wouldn't actually run on 360. The 360 processors can't operate the Octocamo in the game. The processors aren't capable of handling it, would heat up too much, cause warping, and bam! Red ring of death. So just do me a favor, don't start spouting that "PS3 fanboys" are protecting this title, it's main halt is the technology. Besides I don't take anyone's comments seriously who even mention the word "fanboy". It's such an irrelevant term that just expresses the commenters pure ignorance and lack of debating skills towards a valid point in an argument. Learn your facts my friend.

  • jtthegame316

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 7:06 am PT

    just think how much more sales metal gear 4 will make when konami remember they are a third party and put it on 360. ps 3 fanboys don't start with your multi disk crap because when it comes down to it a good game is a good game no matter how many disks it spans and it would not take them no more than 4 anyway maybe less.

  • rmoorevtps3

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:57 am PT

    rnk99999- I know the PS3 hardware costs have gone down. They were somewhere around $800 to make around launch, now they cost Sony like $440. Just as Sony is about to break even with regard to production hardware costs and their sales price they are not going to drop the price of the PS3. Not for a long time. Why would they start taking $100 dollar losses just as they are about to make some profit? The thing is a lot of people don't realize not all consumers are like those in the US. Sony is a Japanese based company as you know. In Japan people are still playing the crap out of their PS2s. The market was not ready for the PS3 when it came out, plain and simple. The technology was too much, thus the insane prices. Sony knows that in the coming years everyone will want their product tho. If not next year, then the next year. If not then, then the next year. People act like this whole "console war" is a week to week, month to month battle. I know the companies involved are not naive enough to think so.

  • King_Jeremy_77

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:56 am PT

    All anybody wants to do anymore is buy the Wii. I love the Wii, but damn, all 3 consoles are great. It's either the Wii, or everyone's playing some sort of shooter.

  • Thornscar

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:24 am PT

    To bad PS3 couldn't copy the success of the PS2.

  • cspiffo

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 6:21 am PT

    Poor Banjo. People need to wake up and start buying good original games instead of stale sequels all the time. I'm actually kind of impressed with LBPs numbers. I sort of knew it wouldn't draw in what Sony was expecting. It did well enough though for MM to continue support of the title which is a very good thing.

    People! Buy Banjo. It truely is a great game.

  • rnk99999

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 3:25 am PT

    rmoorevtps3

    That was just my point! They need more then what is out there for me to spend more than 199.99 for that system. And you are right no game system (wii is the exception) sells for a profit out of the gate. However as tech ages and production gets cheaper and a successful piece of hardware will begin to profit (case in point when ps2 hit 199 they were making money off the hardware but that same hardware at 299 was a loss leader.) Not saying I will not spend more then 199 for a system if there is enough value ( must haves in gaming terms) for my taste. I paid 349.99 for my xbox. So my point being that if you think that production cost have not changed for the better for sony since launch you are crazy, and if sony wants to survive in a tough economy a further reduction is going to be needed to drive hardware sales as the small amount of exclusives they have right now is not enough for most to "have to have" the PS3. In the end for all gaming platforms software is truly where the money is and PS3 will never top the charts on a regular basis while having the least amount of hardware out there, and third party software developlers will continue to jump ship on exclusives as they want to turn as many copies as they can and you dont sell the most copies on the least sold system. What I meant by microsoft was smart was they took a gamble and began taking a larger hit on hardware inorder to get more units in peoples homes as this will turn into $$ from a software standpoint. That all being said I am sure I will get one as I have loved all my PS systems and I did get my PS2 at launch, just not enough there yet to make me feel like I need this and my xbox.

  • thespywholied

    Posted Jan 29, 2009 12:20 am PT

    behold. the might of the growing PS3!

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