According to the NPD Group September sales numbers for the US, Nintendo is selling stuff like gangbusters. The Wii outsold the closest NON-Nintendo offering by a ratio of 2:1 while the DS which came in second sold nearly the same amount. Combined they shipped over a million units in the month (687K Wii, 537K DS).

The first non-Nintendo console was the Xbox 360 which topped the competition from Sony at a swift 3:2 clip.

Over on the games side of things the Wii and the Xbox 360 shared most of the top 10 spots amongst themselves giving only one spot up to a game on the PS3 and PS2 each, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Madden NFL 09 respectively.

In fact the Xbox 360 version of Star Wars: TFU (or STFU I guess you could call it) rang up 610K units...combine all SKUs for the game and you have about  1.6 million units. The second spot on the chart belonged firmly to the strong product from Nintendo, Wii Fit w/Balance Board which lifted a massive 518K units over its head before calling it a month. Of course not to be left ouf othe mix were the Xbox 360 Rock Band 2 (363K) and Mario Kart w/Wheel (353K). The sole PS3 title came in at Number 5 and was STFU with 325K.

Here’s all the hard numbers:

It was a good month overall for games as sales remained in the same range as last year only dropping 7% or about  80 million dollars....heh, chump change to the industry really. All categories were down - hardware, software and accessories - which caused the dip. Of course Year-to-date numbers are 26% up totaling about $11.82 billion....

Economic downturn? Nay says games! NPD Analyst Anita Frazier said "Overall, the health of the video games industry remains quite strong despite the rocky economic conditions.  Tracking against typical industry seasonality, the U.S. video games industry is positioned to realize $22B or more in revenues for the year (does not include PC Games)."

What about PC Games? Well she had this to say, "Although PC games sales are not included in these numbers, there were two that should be pointed out.  Spore realized sales of 406K units and Warhammer Online:  Age of Reckoning sold  274K which would put them both in the top 10 list of combined console, portable and pc games sales for the month."

Luckily the industry is flourishing on diversity this year, "A full 35% of last year’s software sales came from one title:  Halo 3.  This year, the wealth is spread a bit more broadly as seven titles achieved sales of 250K units or more while last year only three hit that mark."

All platforms are seeing some success as well, "A wide array of content found retail success from Star Wars:  The Force Unleashed, to Wii Fit, to LEGO Batman.  Rock Band 2 achieved sales of over 360K units on just one platform and this title should continue to make its mark on the industry when the PS3, Wii and PS2 versions are released later this year." 

Long Live Gaming!

Special thanks to the NPD Group for the monthly sales numbers report and to Anita Frazier, NPD Analyst for the notes.