Swedish Market Down in H1 2009

The Swedish market saw an overall decline in H1 2009 with sotware units down 4.6% to 2.73m from 2.86m a year earlier. The format breakdowns were as follows;

PC: 36% - 983,399 (-0.9%)
360: 13.7% - 372,742 (-1.1%)
PS2: 13.4% - 367,005 (-30.1%)
PS3: 13.4% - 365,361 (-0.8%)
Wii: 11.6% - 317,554 (-6.8%)
NDS: 9.5% - 260,140 (+28.8%)
PSP: 2.3% - 62,822 (+32.0%)

In terms of value the market was down sharper by 10.4% from 1,049m SKR in 2008 to 940m SKR in 2009. The format breakdowns were as follows;

PC: 22.4% - SKR 210,381,938 (+3.0%)
PS3: 19.9% - SKR 187,357,453 (-12.5%)
360: 19.0% - SKR 178,960,880 (-15.5%)
Wii: 16.6% - SKR 155,687,047 (-13.2%)
PS2: 10.9% - SKR 102,520,502 (-38.8%)
NDS: 9.9% - SKR 92,751,453 (+53.8%)
PSP: 1.4% - SKR 12,761,589 (+10.4%)



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Wii at 17m in Europe

According to this interview with Stephan Bole of Nintendo France Wii has sold 17m in Europe, but it's unclear if this is sold to retailers or consumers. Last month Microsoft claimed 9m Xbox 360s sold to consumers in Europe and said this was about 1m more than the PS3.

Unfortunately due to differences in the definition of Europe and unclear sources (GfK, internal estimates, or shipped?) the following figures may not be comparing exactly the same thing, they also fail to include PS3 Slim sales which Sony recently claimed to have sold 1m to consumers Worldwide in the first 3 weeks.

Wii: 17m
360: 9m
PS3: 8m

PS3 Slim sells 40,000 in Australia

Not sure if this is sold to retailers or consumers, but Sony says it sold "40,000 PS3 Slim consoles in the first two and a half weeks, including 21,000 in the first four days".

Link

PS3 Slim sells 4,600 units in New Zealand (GfK)

From an SCENZ press release;

Sony Computer Entertainment New Zealand (SCENZ) announced today that the new slimline PlayStation®3 (PS3™) 120GB console has enjoyed a very successful debut in New Zealand; with more than 4,600 units sold between launch on the 3 September up to 20 September.

PS3 was the number one selling console in New Zealand during launch week and official GfK figures reveal the console has held that position each week since its launch. This news comes as SCE globally announced yesterday at Tokyo Games Show the introduction of a PS3 250GB console launching this October and a Motion Controller arriving mid-2010.

David Hine, Sales and Marketing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment New Zealand said, “The new PlayStation 3 slim model has experienced exceptionally strong sales in the New Zealand market. Sales exceeded 4,600 units in 17 days and sold through more than 2,800 in the first 4 days alone.”

Link

Mixed results for Dutch market in H1 2009

PC games saw a decline in both value and units from 1.35m worth €19.7m in 2008 down to 1.16m worth €18.6m in 2009. Console software rose from 3.25m units worth €115.24m in 2008 to 3.40m worth €116.6m in 2009.

Hardware saw a slight drop with 0.54m units sold in 2009 compared to 0.55m in 2008. The drop in value was sharper at €108.68m compared to €118.04m in the previous year.



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August 2009 UK Charts

August 2009 Individual Format Top Ten

01 [WII] Wii Sports Resort (203,000)
02 [WII] Wii Fit (59,000)
03 [WII] Ashes Cricket 2009 (47,000)
04 [PS3] Ashes Cricket 2009 (45,000)
05 [360] Ashes Cricket 2009 (38,000)
06 [WII] Mario Kart Wii (34,000)
07 [WII] Wii Play (24,000)
08 [WII] EA Sports Active (24,000)
09 [PS3] Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (21,000)
10 [360] Fight Night Round 4 (19,000)

Check out the UK LTD Charts by platform for the latest update

Italian market stable during H1 2009

Hardware

Units: 1 mln (+0,56% over H1 2008)
Value: -2,33% over H1 2008

DS 100 (+20,64%)
WII 50,30 (+31,55%)
PSP 29,74 (-29,7%)
PS3 25,75 (-16,24%)
360 23,95 (+36,54%)
PS2 16,56 (-49,20%)

Software

Units: 8 mln circa (+0,14% over H1 2008)
Valore: +1,34% over H1 2008

DS 100
PS2 85,15
PC 69,84
WII 68,89
PS3 59,61
360 43,65
PSP 41,61

Top 15

01 Mario Kart WII
02 Wii Fit WII
03 Pokemon Platino DS
04 PES 2009 PS2
05 Wii Play WII
06 Resident Evil 5 PS3
07 Professor Layton E Il Paese Dei Misteri DS
08 Sims 3 PC
09 Mario Power Tennis WII
10 Killzone 2 PS3
11 PES 2009 PS3
12 Brain Traning DS
13 New Super Mario Bros. DS
14 Mario Kart DS
15 More Brain Training DS

Link

Belgian Market Declines During First Half 2009

Video game sales were down in both units and value for both consoles and PC during H1 2009. Total software unit sales were down 2.9% from 3.14m to 3.05m, PC software was down 8.7% from 0.69m to 0.63m, and Console software was down 1.2% from 2.45m to 2.42m.

In terms of value the total software market was down 4.0% from €101.55m down to €97.52m, with PC down 2.2% from €12.95m to €12.67m and Console software was down 4.2% from €88.60m to €84.85m.

Video game hardware unit sales were down 11.4% from 0.35m to 0.31m and down 14.2% in terms of value from €74.48m to €63.91m.



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UK PS3 sales at 2.5m

Unclear if this is sold to retailers (my guess) or consumers, but that should be cleared up when GAME are expected to reveal the Chart-Track figures in their interim statement next wednesday.

From a letter to the BBC by SCEUK Senior Vice President and Managing Director Ray Maguire, dated September 11;

SCEUK has sold 2.5 million consoles in the UK since March 2007 and stands by the quality of its products.

However we think it is highly unfair to suggest that from an installed base of 2.5 million that the numbers you mention somehow are evidence of a 'manufacturing defect'.

The testing concerned a sample of only three PS3s, which cannot, on any basis, be deemed to be representative of a UK user base of [c. 2.5 million].

Link

SELL pay GfK nearly €1m annually for French sales figures

Jean-Claude Larue, the general delegate of French industry association SELL explains why SELL doesn't publish figures with it's French charts (Google translation);

EL: The GFK SELL and provide a weekly hit parade of games and consoles but no exact figure sale is ever given in France in contrast to other countries. This lack, then why?

- J-CL: Figures are paying dearly. The contract between SELL and GFK already cost nearly one million euros per year. And these data belong to secrecy. It is not nothing to have 2,000 stores visited regularly each week and have the sales to the nearest unit provided by a large international institute GFK as no one denies. That'sa lot of money. It did not give it to people who do not want to pay. When you look at the top of the books we do not say the number of copies sold. Every week we publish on the site SELL the top 5 PC games and consoles, in order. One does not simply quantity. We give general figures twice a year. In IDEF, our trade show in Cannes in June, and towards the end of the year.

Link

Looks like we're stuck with semi-annual software figures for only the top selling titles for the time being. Fortunately the manufacturers seem happy to supply us with GfK hardware figures more often than every six months.

August 2009 NPD

Wii - 277,400 (21.10m)
360 - 215,400 (15.90m)
PS3 - 210,000 (8.24m)
NDS - 552,900 (32.72m)
PSP - 140,300 (14.48m)
PS2 - 105,900 (44.09m)

01 Madden NFL 10 (360) 928,000
02 Wii Sports Resort w/ Wii Motion Plus (Wii) 754,000
03 Madden NFL 10 (PS3) 665,000
04 Batman: Arkham Asylum (360) 303,000
05 Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3) 290,000
06 Madden NFL 10 (PS2) 160,000
07 Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP) 130,000
08 Wii Fit (Wii) 128,000
09 Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii) 120,000
10 Fossil Fighters (DS) 92,000
11 Mario Kart DS (DS)
12 NEW SUPER MARIO BROS (DS)
13 WII PLAY W/ REMOTE (Wii)
14 POKEMON PLATINUM VERSION (DS)
15 NCAA FOOTBALL 10 (360)
16 PROFESSOR LAYTON AND THE DIABOLICAL BOX (DS) 67,500
17 MADDEN NFL 10 (Wii) 66,000
18 WOLFENSTEIN 360 (360) 59,000
19 EA SPORTS ACTIVE BUNDLE (Wii)
20 TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 10* (Wii)

** Madden NFL 10 (PSP) 44,000
** Metroid Prime Trilogy (Wii) <35,000
** Wolfenstein (PS3) 30,000
** Wolfenstein (PC) 17,000

LTDs:

Call Of Duty: World At War (Wii) 750,000
Madworld (Wii) 123,000

Russian Video Game Industry Association to be Formed in October

From this week's MCV;

‘Russian ELSPA’ to form at October conference

RUSSIA is set to officially swear in its first video games trade association.

The National Russian Association of Game Industry will be unveiled at new trade show the All-Russian Conference in October.

Organisers of ACGi also hope to help establish a ‘Committee of Games Industry Development’ to improve links with publishers, developers and educators both inside and outside of Russia.

The conference will boast an expo, lectures, press conferences and various networking events.

ACGi takes place in take place in the town of Dubna from October 27th to 29th and has backing from the Russian Government.

“ACGi will become the bridge between Russian and the global games business,” said Konstantin Popov, CEO of co-organiser Biart Studio.

Acogi

The problem with extrapolating from old Chart-Track data

Chart-Track reported that PS3 sales increased by 999% last week after declining 20% the previous week. Whilst declining to release specific numbers they did say that the PS2 Slim had sold 21% more during it's release week in 2004. Chart-Track did release the actual PS2 Slim launch week numbers back then; 50,000.

Many sites, including MCV picked up on this, and calculated PS3 Slim first week sales at 40,000 (or 41,322 to be precise).

There are several problems with this though;

Firstly the 50,000 was almost certainly rounded, maybe by 5,000 or 10% if rounded to the nearest 10,000.

The second issue is where there is a bigger problem. Chart-Track's coverage has increased over the years, and with each increase in coverage their extrapolation model is adjusted and back-dated to reflect this. This can be seen in annual total market statistics for a certain year changing over time. Fortunately their market coverage has been around 90% since 2005, so any data since then shouldn't have been adjusted for this reason, but any data prior to 2005 is most likely obsolete and has since been adjusted.

PS2 launched in Q4 2004 when Chart-Track's coverage was 85%, but in Q1 2005 Chart-Track's coverage increased to 90% with the addition of Play.com, Sainsburys, John Lewis, Morrisons and Simply Games to their panel. The data from these stores which had previously been estimated would then have been applied to PS2 Slim's launch week sales, resulting in an adjustment to the originally reported figure. Unfortunately it's impossible to know by how much.

Chart-Track market coverage:



The third issue is similar to the second. As reported last month, even when their coverage hasn't changed Chart-Track adjusts it's extrapolation models based on consultations with the platform holders and back-dates the adjusted figures to the historical data. This resulted in Wii and DS being adjusted by roughly 5% recently.

When you add all of these together it creates quite a large margin of error, whilst PS3 may have sold 40,000 last week, it's quite possible that it sold significantly more or less than this. Unfortunately it's impossible to know an exact figure unless Chart-Track decide to release it.

Western Europe through 2008 (GfK)

European Market Data for 2008 (millions of units)



Countries: UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, etc.
Source: Famitsu Game Hakusho/White Paper 2009 / GfK

Sony France talk PS3 sales

Some PS3 numbers from George Fornay of SCE France:

* First week PS3 sales of nearly 40,000 (another report put the exact figure at 37,000).

* Previous weeks PS3 was selling 4,000 - 5,000.

* YTD sales of 300,000 in 2009.

* Target is to sell 900,000 - 1,000,000 hardware units and 6,000,000 sotware units this year.

* 530,000 hardware units sold in 2007, 715,000 hardware units & 4,200,000 software units sold in 2008 (these numbers are slightly different to previously announced numbers, maybe there has been an adjustment).

Xbox 360 sales rise 43% in UK after price cut, PS3 declines 20% prior to one (GfK)

No hard numbers, so it doesn't really tell us much, but here's the article anyway;

£30 price cut for Elite SKU does the business for Microsoft; PS3 sales fall ahead of Slim model launch

The combination of a UK bank holiday and Microsoft’s £30 reduction in the cost of an Xbox 360 Elite lead to a 43 per cent week-on-week sales increase for the next-gen console last week, ChartTrack has told MCV.

Those who were expecting a more significant upturn should, ChartTrack added, note the time of year – the UK shouldn’t expect a serious and consistent increase in weekly hardware sales until October.

Predictably, sales of Sony’s PS3 fell by 20 per cent last week ahead of the launch of the brand new PS3 Slim today. ChartTrack told MCV that it “expects some serious sales numbers” for Sony’s machine come next week.

MCV