Data for the biggest week of 2007 is now completely up to date. In the Americas, the week ending December 22, 2007 was the last full week before Christmas and as a result, it is the peak of sales for this year, and it will undoubtedly be among the peak weeks of this generation in the Americas. Heading into the holiday season, it looked as if the industry would break many records, and with just about all of the sales for 2007 now available, there is no longer any doubt that the industry saw a record breaking year for both hardware and software sales. A number of significant milestones were reached this particular week as well DS hardware passed 20 million units lifetime in the Americas. Xbox 360 hardware passed 10 million units lifetime as well. The PS2 continues to march toward 50 million units of hardware sold in the Americas although it is slowly running out of steam. Even the GBA, three years into the life of its successor the DS, had a last gasp this December, having what is likely to be its last 200,000 unit month.
As for the actual sales of the week, DS remained on top selling over 900,000 units this week. While big drops are to come in the next two weeks for DS hardware, the portable has a very legitimate shot at selling 3.0 million units in the Americas for retail December which runs from the December 2nd to January 6th. In calendar December, DS will probably end up selling only ~2.8 million units in the Americas. Just below the DS this week was the Wii, which sold nearly 750,000 units this week in the Americas. While Nintendos shipment of Wiis was massive this week, Wii likely will not hit the 2.0 million units for December that could have happened had supply been there the week ending December 15th. For calendar December, Wii sales will be more like 1.6 million units in the Americas, while the retail period of December will see sales closer to 1.8 million. At half the sales of Wii this week, Xbox 360 has seen nearly 1.0 million units sold in the first three weeks of December, and it will likely end up at 1.4 million for the calendar December, and 1.6 million for the retail period of December. Sales for Xbox 360s are much stronger than last year, and despite the prospect of an early year price cut and Grand Theft Auto 4, Xbox 360 sales may have peaked this year. Beneath the Xbox 360 in sales, PS2 saw sales of just over 300,000 units this week, and will end up near 1.0 million units in retail December, and about 850,000 units in calendar December. While the PS2 is in definite decline, it is worth noting that Xbox 360 sales were only 20% higher than PS2 sales this week. Sales for the PSP this week came in about 10% lower than PS2 sales, but PSP numbers should end up nearly identical to PS2 figures for December. Lastly, PS3 sales were about 20% below the PSP sales this week at just over 225,000 units. For calendar December, PS2 sales look to be 800,000 units, while the five week retail period will see PS3 sales of about 950,000 units. In essence, December sales look to finish in the expected order of DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, PS2, with PS3 in last. While the order has remained the same, the $400 price point boosted November and December sales for the PS3 by about 75% for November, and about 50% for December as compared to how the PS3 would have tracked without the price induced boost (PS3 was on pace for a 300-350k November, and a 600-700k December after selling under 150k in October). At the beginning of 2008, the factor to watch will be how sales level off at closer price points. Below are the sales for consoles and portables this week as compared to last week. Following the comparison of hardware figures are the top ten games for Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3.
22-Dec 15-Dec Change
Wii 740,791 173,798 +326%
DS 905,868 725,740 +25%
PS3 226,263 192,730 +17%
PSP 278,968 251,689 +11%
Xbox 360 367,304 330,501 +11%
PS2 302,260 253,824 +19%
After selling relatively poorly last week, Nintendo allocated more Wiis this week to the Americas, and sales were up tremendously. PS3 bested its launch month (November 2006) sales in a single week this year. Xbox 360 sales were very strong as well, with the last two weeks already stronger than all of November 2006.
Here are the top ten selling games for Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 not including bundled titles followed by notes on the interesting tidbits of data from the top 200 chart.
Wii Xbox 360 PS3
1 Super Mario Galaxy Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
2 Wii Play Assassin's Creed Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
3 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Rockband Assassin's Creed
4 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Mass Effect Unreal Tournament III
5 Mario Party 8 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Madden NFL 2008
6 Link's Crossbow Training Halo 3 Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
7 Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga Madden NFL 2008 Need for Speed: ProStreet
8 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008 Rockband
9 Highschool Musical: Sing it Need for Speed: ProStreet Ratchet & Clank Future: T o D
10 Metroid Prime 3 Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga NBA 2K8
Notes:
- Top software across the three platforms is nearly identical to last week in the absence of big releases.
- Xbox 360 hit 10.0 million units in the Americas over ½ a year before its predecessor, despite more expensive pricing.
- Guitar Hero 3 has over 4.5 million units to date in the Americas.
- Assassins Creed (on both Xbox 360 and PS3) and Super Mario Galaxy continue to have lifetime sales of almost 1:1, with both titles at approximately 2.0 million units.
- DS hardware outsold all Sony hardware combined this week. While DS software did not outsell all Sony software combined, Wii software did.
- Six publishers sold over 500,000 games this week.
- Every game in the top 200 software chart sold over 10,000 units.
- Zack and Wiki has reached a very quiet 130,000 units, although that total is still far from ideal.
- Resistance: Fall of Man will become the first PS3 title to break the 1.0 million sold barrier (just in the Americas). It will happen either next week, or the following week.
- Nights launched to sales of under 20,000 units.
- Microsofts attempt to grab more casual gamers, Scene It, has sold fewer than 200,000 units thus far in the Americas.
- Rockband is developing strong legs.
- More Brain Training has sold over 1,000,000 units in the Americas.
- In the top 200 chart for this week, there were 23 Xbox 360 titles with lifetime sales of over 500,000 units. For comparison, there were 12 Wii titles with lifetime sales over 500,000 units in the top 200 this week, while PS3 had five titles with lifetime sales over 500,000 in the top 200.
- Current Generation Totals: Of the 21,667,766 Xbox 360s, Wiis, and PS3s sold since the three launched in the Americas, the Xbox 360 accounts for 46.7%, the Wii accounts for 37.8%, and the PS3 accounts for 15.5%. Looking back through the archive of these articles, Wii was under 30% as recently as June 17th, when Xbox 360 still had 56.5% of the Americas market. Also of note: Wii lifetime sales are within 10% of Xbox 360 lifetime sales for the first time in the Americas.
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