Video game sales didn’t make their much longed-for comeback in November, despite huge sales of Activision Blizzard’s hit game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Overall, the industry sales fell 7. 6 percent, perhaps a consequence of heavy price-cutting and promotions to get shoppers into stores, as well as the recession’s drag on spending.
Modern Warfare 2, which has become the top-selling video game of all time with $550 million in worldwide revenue in its first five days, took the No. 1 spot. The launch of Modern Warfare 2 as well as other big games such as Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed II made November a unique month in video game history.
Yet overall game hardware, software and accessory sales were $2.69 billion, down 7.6 percent from $2.92 billion a year ago in November, according to market researcher NPD Group. Still, the performance in November was better than the 16 percent drop in sales in October. To date, overall video game sales are down 12.1 percent.
Anita Frazier, analyst at the NPD Group, said that November was still the second biggest in sales in game history, topped only by last year. That just goes to show what an incredible year games had in 2008, she said. Compared to November 2007, the November 2009 sales were up 7 percent. Frazier predicts that December could be up 11 percent compared to a year ago, bringing overall sales for 2009 to about flat compared to 2008. That may be wishful thinking; it’s possible that free-to-play online games, iPhone games, and social games on Facebook are eating away at the market share for retail sales of PC and console games.
Hardware sales were $1.05 billion, down 13.4 percent from $1.21 billion a year ago. While unit sales were strong, revenues were down because all three console makers slashed their hardware prices this fall. While analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan expected Sony to beat out Microsoft’s Xbox 360 this month, sales of the PS 3 came in third place at 710,400 units, compared to 819,500 for the Xbox 360 and 1.26 million for the Nintendo Wii. The PlayStation 2 sold 203,100 units — pretty good after 109 months on the market.
Although the PS 3 sales didn’t beat the Xbox 360’s, Sony still had its third-best month ever for PS 3 sales. Sony’s U.S. president, Jack Tretton, said that his console was the only one to see growth compared to a year ago, with PS 3 sales up 88 percent over last November’s sales. Microsoft said it had the best November in history for Xbox 360 hardware sales, helped in no small part by sales of the limited edition Xbox 360 Elite bundled with Modern Warfare 2.
In handhelds, the Nintendo DS/DSi sold 1.7 million units, compared to 293,000 for the PlayStation Portable. That means the PSPgo, launched in October, was a smashing failure so far. It hasn’t, that is, helped turn around Nintendo’s two-to-one sales advantage in handhelds. In fact, Nintendo widened its lead.
Software sales were $1.40 billion, down 3.1 percent from $1.45 billion a year ago. Unit sales of software were also down, which means that heavy promotions and hardware price cuts didn’t do much to lift sales. And accessories were $242.2 million, down 5.5 percent from $256.2 million a year ago.
The top-selling games of the month included Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360, Modern Warfare 2 on the PS 3, the New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii, Assassin’s Creed II, and Left 4 Dead 2 for the Xbox 360. While Modern Warfare 2 bested the top selling game of November, 2008, by 283 percent, it couldn’t make up for softness elsewhere. In fact, the top 50 games of November 2009 sold 5 percent less than the top 50 games of November, 2008.
Microsoft said that Modern Warfare 2 for the Xbox 360 sold 4.2 million units, twice as much as it sold on the PS 3. It said that on the first day, players logged 5.2 million hours playing Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer on Xbox Live. Microsoft said that players spent $838 million on Xbox 360 products in November, making it the best November in history for the console.
Electronic Arts had some disappointments. While Left 4 Dead 2 was No. 5 and Dragon Age: Origins was No. 9 on the top 10 list, neither the Beatles Rock Band nor Brutal Legend made it onto the list.