The NPD Group has announced its tracking results for new U.S. retail video game sales in February, showing overall revenues across the industry increasing 3 percent compared to the same month last year on strong hardware and accessory growth.
Total new retail sales of hardware, software and accessories across consoles, portables and the PC were up to $1.36 billion for the month. Excluding PC sales, the industry number was up 4 percent to $1.33 billion.
The gains were not evenly distributed, however -- spending on console hardware, software and accessories was up 12 percent year-over-year, compared to a 27 percent drop for portables.
"We are looking for the portable segment of the market to rebound beginning later this month when the highly anticipated 3DS launches in the U.S. on March 27th," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
Software
Despite the overall gains for new retail sales, software sales for the month were down 8 percent from February 2010 to $637.4 million, an even larger annual drop than that seen in January. Sales for console games were up 2 percent year-over-year, however, and total sales for the top ten sellers in February were 6 percent higher in 2011 than in 2010.
"There were fewer new releases in February 2011 vs. February 2010, but those new releases were more productive, selling more on average than the new releases did last year," Frazier said.
Hardware
Hardware sales, on the other hand, were up 10 percent year-over-year to $466.9 million, a turnaround from January's 8 percent yearly drop.
Nintendo also revealed that the Wii sold 454,000 units in the month, up over 14 percent from the year before. The new sales put the system above 35 million unit mark in the U.S. faster than any other console in history.
NPD also revealed that all three consoles saw some hardware sales increase since last February.
[UPDATE: An analyst's note from Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter revealed the PS3 sold 403,000 units for the month, up 12 percent year over year]
Accessories
Accessories were the largest-gaining segment in the NPD report, up 22 percent to $256.9 million for the month, continuing a streak of strong accessory performance.
"This is the 18th consecutive month of double-digit increases in both dollars and units for PS3 accessory sales, and the sixth consecutive month of double-digit increases in both dollars and units for the 360," Frazier said.
The Xbox 360 points card was the top-selling product in the category, with point cards as a whole up 55 percent compared to last February to represent 22 percent of the accessory market as a whole.
Software Sales Rankings
Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops topped sales of new retail software for the fourth month in a row in February, becoming the best-selling game in history, according to NPD. The first-person shooter beat out newcomer Marvel vs. Capcom 3, which finished in second.
[UPDATE: IndustryGamers received word from NPD that Black Ops sold 13.7 million units in the U.S. through February.]
Other newcomers on the monthly top ten list in February include EA's Xbox 360, PS3 and PC shooter Bulletstorm in seventh place, edging out PS3 exclusive Killzone 3 in eighth place. Nintendo-published newcomer Mario Sports Mix also snuck in to the list at tenth place.
Dance titles generally maintained their strong showing from January, with Ubisoft's Just Dance 2 finishing in third place for the month. Nintendo revealed the title was the month's number one seller when single-system software sales are separated out, with 554,000 units sold during the month.
Majesco's Zumba Fitness and Ubisoft's Michael Jackson: The Experience rounded out the dance game performance with sixth and ninth place appearances, respectively, while Kinect-powered Dance Central dropped off the top ten from last month's eighth place position.
The top selling new retail games in the U.S. for February 2011, as reported by NPD, are as follows:
1. Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard) - Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC
2. Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Capcom) - Xbox 360, PS3
3. Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft) - Wii - 554,000
4. NBA 2K11 (Take-Two) - Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, PSP, PC
5. Dead Space 2 (Electronic Arts) - Xbox 360, PS3, PC
6. Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Majesco) - Wii, Xbox 360, PS3
7. Bulletstorm (Electronic Arts) - Xbox 360, PS3, PC
8. Killzone 3 (Sony) - PS3
9. Michael Jackson The Experience (Ubisoft) - Wii, DS, PSP
10. Mario Sports Mix (Nintendo) - Wii
[UPDATE: Capcom's Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Facebook page notes that the game was #1 in a NPD Top 5 list for February, but Gamasutra believes this list excludes Call Of Duty: Black Ops's PC SKUs - making Capcom's game top for console-specific sales.
Well, Kinect hit 8 million in early January (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32301/Microsoft_Sells_8_Million_Kinec ts_Intro duces_Avatar_Kinect_Chat_Service.php) and hit 10 million just this week, so I'd guesstimate about 1 million-ish came in February. Remember, though, that's worldwide, while NPD is U.S.
Wasn't there just a report that more jobs were lost in February? Anyway, I hope the US economy picks up, and the games business along with it too.
I think the current state of affairs has been a huge boon to gamers though, as it pushed back the introduction of new consoles. Not only does that save consumers like me that expense, but game development costs had been spiralling upwards already, new hardware, I think, would have excaserbated [sic] that problem and would, imo, have been disastrous for game development.
Also, more than any generation people have started to get a handle on what this gen has to offer. In particular the downloadable games have really been a great avenue for fresh ideas, as well including reintroducing forgotten games/genres, etc. that still have value.
By the way, this was, what Pachter predicted 4 days ago:
"The analyst expects Xbox 360 to lead monthly home console sales with 385,000 units on strong demand for Kinect, and 310,000 for PS3 and 305,000 units for Wii."
As usual, he was wrong again, big time wrong, but this isn't surprising.
Another question that comes up here, the Pachter analysis was:
"Ahead of NPD Group's February U.S. video game console software sales data this week, Pachter also forecast monthly sales of $595 million, down 6 percent year-on-year. If the forecast is correct, February would be the third consecutive month of negative growth at U.S. video game software retail."
In 2010 Gamasutra reported $624.4m for console software sales. Accepting a 2% increase and $637.4m seems reasonable for console software sales. The 8% drop of all games software has to be related to a different number. Pachter seems kinda right (you get a 5%--not 6%--decline using his forecast). It's small mix-up by Mr. Orland.
This gets a bit confusing because of the split way NPD reports software numbers with and without PC sales:
Here are the numbers direct from the report we got yesterday:
console + portable:
Feb 2010: 633.6M
Feb 2011: 601.4M (down 5%)
console + portable + PC
Feb 2010: 689.3M
Feb 2011: 637.4M (down 8%)
We use the PC inclusive number for all reporting.
As for the 624.4M software number NPD reported for Feb a year ago, I can only assume this has since been adjusted to the newly reported 633.6M (PC sales were not included in the reports a year ago).
The official revenue figures for February 2010 were updated by the NPD Group. It's common to see adjustments like that. See, for example, the way in which unemployment figures for several prior months are often revised by the U.S. government when a new month's figures are announced.
Zumba is on Kinect too. Majesco said that it is mainly selling on the Wii, but I guess you can count it as Kinect software too with the way NPD reports these days.
duces_Avatar_Kinect_Chat_Service.php) and hit 10 million just this week, so I'd guesstimate about 1 million-ish came in February. Remember, though, that's worldwide, while NPD is U.S.
I think the current state of affairs has been a huge boon to gamers though, as it pushed back the introduction of new consoles. Not only does that save consumers like me that expense, but game development costs had been spiralling upwards already, new hardware, I think, would have excaserbated [sic] that problem and would, imo, have been disastrous for game development.
Also, more than any generation people have started to get a handle on what this gen has to offer. In particular the downloadable games have really been a great avenue for fresh ideas, as well including reintroducing forgotten games/genres, etc. that still have value.
"The analyst expects Xbox 360 to lead monthly home console sales with 385,000 units on strong demand for Kinect, and 310,000 for PS3 and 305,000 units for Wii."
As usual, he was wrong again, big time wrong, but this isn't surprising.
Another question that comes up here, the Pachter analysis was:
"Ahead of NPD Group's February U.S. video game console software sales data this week, Pachter also forecast monthly sales of $595 million, down 6 percent year-on-year. If the forecast is correct, February would be the third consecutive month of negative growth at U.S. video game software retail."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33391/Analyst_Forecasts_June_Hardware_Price_C
uts_February_Declines_In_US.php
Now we have sales of $637.4 million, and it is stated, that this means an 8 percent drop YoY. Which number is correct?
2010 numbers:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4299/npd_behind_the_numbers_feb ruary_.php
Here are the numbers direct from the report we got yesterday:
console + portable:
Feb 2010: 633.6M
Feb 2011: 601.4M (down 5%)
console + portable + PC
Feb 2010: 689.3M
Feb 2011: 637.4M (down 8%)
We use the PC inclusive number for all reporting.
As for the 624.4M software number NPD reported for Feb a year ago, I can only assume this has since been adjusted to the newly reported 633.6M (PC sales were not included in the reports a year ago).