US Game Sales for July (NPD)

One of the things I’ve been doing is studying the entertainment business. As video games are part of this, I figured I’d pass along the sales information. You would be surprised how many parallels there are between the book industry and the video game industry. I don’t really play any games (haven’t bought a console in like 16 years) but some of you might be interested in the sales information. Besides, it makes for an easy blog post!

There are three major markets for games: Japan, North America, and Europe. Japanese sales information is the easiest to obtain usually through Famitsu or Media Create. United States sales is often summed up by the NPD. European sales information are the hardest come by. Also, in Europe I get the information in seperate countries rather than as a whole. So far, the three major markets are trending…

Japan = DS Land (160,000 DSes sold a week. All other systems combined don’t even match that number. DS is currently outpacing the Famicom sales.)

America = You’ll see below.

Europe = Trending toward something like Japan in parts.

Here are the United States sales numbers from July by NPD:

July Hardware Sales

NDS = 377,000
PS2 = 241,000
360 = 206,000
GBA = 163,000
PSP = 161,000
GCN = 44,000
Xbox = 12,000

July Top 25 Software Sales

US Top 25 Videogame Titles
Rank Title Publisher

Rank Title Publisher
1 PS2 NCAA FOOTBALL 07 Electronic Arts
2 360 NCAA FOOTBALL 07 Electronic Arts
3 NDS NEW SUPER MARIO BROS Nintendo
4 XBX NCAA FOOTBALL 07 Electronic Arts
5 360 CHROMEHOUNDS Sega
6 360 LORD OF THE RINGS: BATTLE FOR THE MIDDLE EARTH 2 Electronic Arts
7 360 PREY Take 2 Interactive
8 PS2 GUITAR HERO BUNDLE Activision
9 PS2 CARS THQ
10 PS2 NARUTO: ULTIMATE NINJA Namco
11 PS2 GRAND THEFT AUTO: LIBERTY CITY STORIES Take 2 Interactive
12 GBA CARS THQ
13 PS2 FIFA WORLD CUP 2006 Electronic Arts
14 360 ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION Take 2 Interactive
15 360 FIFA WORLD CUP 2006 Electronic Arts
16 360 TOM CLANCY’S GHOST RECON: ADVANCED WARFIGHTER Ubi Soft
17 GCN CARS THQ
18 NDS BRAIN AGE: TRAIN YOUR BRAIN IN MINUTES A DAY Nintendo
19 PS2 NFL HEAD COACH Electronic Arts
20 360 FIGHT NIGHT ROUND 3 Electronic Arts
21 NDS BIG BRAIN ACADEMY Nintendo
22 PS2 KINGDOM HEARTS II Square Enix
23 360 OVER G FIGHTERS Ubi Soft
24 360 CALL OF DUTY 2 Activision
25 PS2 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE LEGEND OF JACK SPARROW Bethesda

Source: The NPD Group/NPD Funworld, POS
Note: Ranked in terms of $$$ sales.

NCAA (all versions) = 971,000
Cars (all versions) = 418,000
Prey (360) = 132,000

NPD says:

Overall hardware sales were up 25% y/y counting current and next gen consoles and handheld sales. 128-bit hardware sales were down 33% y/y in July. PS2 unit sales were down 22% y/y, GCN down 13% and Xbox down 47%. This brings the install base of 128-bit consoles to approximately 60 million in the U.S. The Xbox 360 sold 207K units versus 277K in June, with a strong life-to-date tie ratio of 4.61. Combined Xbox and Xbox 360 software increased 44% y/y. We expect Xbox 360 hardware sales to pick up in August with the release of EA’s Madden NFL 2007.

Here is the rank of the games in number of UNITS sold. All the following titles are over 50k sold for the month of July.

PS2 NCAA FOOTBALL 07 492k
360 NCAA FOOTBALL 07 332k
NDS NEW SUPER MARIO BROS 300k
PS2 GRAND THEFT AUTO: LIBERTY C 183k
XBX NCAA FOOTBALL 07 145k
PS2 CARS 121k
NDS BRAIN AGE: TRAIN YOUR BRAIN 120k
NDS BIG BRAIN ACADEMY 118k
GBA CARS 115k
360 CHROMEHOUNDS 111k
360 LORD OF THE RINGS: BATTLE F 108k
PS2 FIFA WORLD CUP 2006 105k
PS2 NARUTO: ULTIMATE NINJA 104k
360 PREY 103k
PS2 STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II 82k
PS2 GUITAR HERO BUNDLE 80k
PS2 GOD OF WAR 74k
GCN CARS 65k
PS2 GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDRE 63k
PS2 MIDNIGHT CLUB 3: DUB ED REM 61k
PS2 NFL HEAD COACH 60k
GBA SUPER MARIO ADVANCE 59k
PS2 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: T 56k
NDS MARIO KART 53k
NDS ANIMAL CROSSING: WILD WORLD 51k