Analysis & Charts – Victory and defeat in the monthly unit shipments battle of the three major game consoles are closely tied to the availability of blockbuster games. Madden NFL 09 had a phenomenal launch in August, selling more than 2.3 million units, but failed to show any positive impact on platform sales. Shipments for all three dropped, dramatically for the Wii and the PS3, while the Xbox 360 had a softer landing and was able to grow its market share. Sony may have to act soon and drop the price of its PS3.

Let’s talk about the good news first. EA launched Madden NFL 09, which sold 1 million units for the Xbox 360, 643,000 for the PS3, 424,500 for the PS2 and 115,800 for the Wii, according to market research firm NPD. Despite criticism that the game did not deliver big changes and remains a title that is difficult to play for newbies, Madden NFL 09 has become one of the most significant video games that has joined the $100+ million revenue club already.

Month-to-month console sales

Click here for an enlarged version of this image

Let’s have a look at the individual sales results. Clearly, Madden NFL 09 impacted video game results somewhat. Wii sales dropped sharply by more than 100,000 units over July from 555,000 to 453,000 Wiis. Nintendo is still heavily advertising its sales success and can still claim that its Wii outships the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined, but we also note that this was the fifth decline in a row and shipments are off from 721,000 in March.

Madden NFL 09 sold extremely well for the Xbox 360 and therefore it may not be surprising that the Xbox 360 was able to sustain its sales level the best in what is quite apparently a difficult period for all three consoles. Shipments were down less than 5% from 204,800 to 195,200. Compared to last year, shipments are down dramatically.

August was a disaster for the PS3, as the console slipped into the third spot of the ranking. Shipments were down from 224,900 to 185,400. Sony is plugging along with the PS3, but it is obvious that the console desperately needs a successful exclusive game title to support its shipments – or a big price cut. Despite the fact that it is the younger platform with what is generally perceived as the more capable hardware and even integrates a Blu-ray drive, Microsoft manages to keep the pace with Sony – which is not only somewhat embarrassing for Sony, but could also get very expensive as well: Microsoft can afford price cuts while Sony cannot. Going into the Christmas season, however, Sony may have to drop PS3 prices in order to save itself the embarrassment to be outshipped by an older rival.

Combined month-to-month console sales

Click here for an enlarged version of this image

The sharp unit shipment drops over the past month prompted us to add up the sales numbers and see how well the manufacturers are doing overall. And the chart clearly reveals an interesting trend. The unit shipment pattern of 2008 is the opposite of 2007. The positive side of this may be that there was no summer-slump and overall shipment volumes have been higher in 2008 than in 2007. However, August should have shown an increase in game console sales, which did not happen. Overall shipments of 833,000 units were at their lowest level since January (773,000) and are just 3% above August 2007 (811,000).

2007 saw shipments of 13.5 million consoles (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360). Cumulative shipments for 2008 are at 8.4 million at this time, which means that the manufacturers will have to sell an average of more than 1.25 million units (a total of 5.1 million) in the remaining four months of the year to match last year’s result – which should be no problem. In the same period of 2007, the three companies sold more than 7.7 million consoles (1.15 million in September, 1.00 million in October, 2.22 million in November and 3.41 million in December.)     

Read on the next page: Cumulative shipments life to date: Wii crosses 12 million mark; Market share update

Life-to-date shipments

Click here for an enlarged version of this image

The Wii’s growth curve is dropping a bit, but the shipment volume is still enough to allow the console to distance itself quickly from the Xbox 360, which has been available for 12 more months. Cumulative Wii shipments in the U.S., according to NPD, now stand at 12.01 million. The Xbox 360 follows with 10.87 million and there is little reason to believe that the PS3 can close that gap anytime soon. Cumulative PS3 shipments in the U.S. are at 5.26 million.

Month-to-month market share

Click here for an enlarged version of this image

 
Changing shipment numbers of course impact the overall market share of any console. Nintendo’s Wii has settled above 50% and there is apparently little Microsoft and Sony can do to change that scenario. However, it the fierce battle between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 is somewhat apparent in this chart, especially if we notice that Microsoft surpassed Sony in August for the third time this year. The battle between these two consoles is certainly much closer than many of us - and probably Sony as well – predicted.

This rivalry should result in an interesting Christmas season.