NPD: Pokemon Black and White tops March 2011 sales charts

The latest NPD Group analysis on US video game sales has been released, for March 2011. Keeping an eye on US sales performance is a good way to gauge to overall health of the video game industry. Below are highlights from the report, including analysis from NPD Group analyst, Anita Frazier.

2010 consumer spend

In 2010, new physical sales of hardware, software and accessories comprised 77% of the consumer spend on the industry, and if looking at content sales specifically, new physical sales represented 63% of the consumer spend on games content.

“We recently completed our estimate of the total consumer spend on the games industry in the U.S. for 2010 including both physical and digital format sales.  We found that increases in some digital forms of content distribution offset the declines in new physical retail sales of software. 2010 saw a consumer spend on games content of US$15.9 billion, which was essentially flat (down less than 1/2 of 1 percentage point) to 2009,” said Frazier.

“While new physical sales of video game hardware, software and accessories are down 1% in the first quarter of 2011, the trends we’ve measured with regard to growth in digital formats like full game and add-on downloads, micro-transactions, mobile apps and social network gaming will likely result in net industry growth when we release our full measure of the first quarter consumer spend on games in June.”

The following analysis by Anita Frazier only represents new physical retail sales.

Hardware

“The 3DS launched in the U.S. on [27 March 2011], so seven days of retail sales are included in this month’s results. The 3DS launch compares quite favourably to that of the best-selling dedicated handheld gaming platform of all time, the Nintendo DS.  While the 3DS sold about 100K units less than the DS did in its launch month, we must consider that the DS launched in November and had holiday seasonality and a price differential of about US$100. Because of the price differential, the 3DS generated greater revenues than did the DS in its launch month in November 2004. In addition, the 3DS was launched in an environment where there are more devices that can support the portable gaming experience such as tablets and smartphones,” said Frazier.

“The best-selling hardware platform for the month was indeed the Nintendo DS despite the launch of the 3DS at the end of the month. The PSP, Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms each enjoyed a unit sales increase over last March. The PSP benefitted from a $40/unit price reduction which occurred at the beginning of the reporting period.”

Software

“Pokemon White is the best-selling Pokemon SKU in its debut month at retail of any Pokemon to date, and the Black version is third.  Combined they break previous sales records held by Pokemon Silver and Gold in October 2000.”

“New physical retail software sales declined significantly, and despite the great success of the Pokemon SKU’s, software sales last year were marked by several marquee titles including Final Fantasy XIII, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and God of War 3 which were all million plus unit sellers in March 2010.”

“The best-selling 3DS game is Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition from Capcom.  Despite selling fewer hardware units in its debut month as compared to the DS, more units of 3DS software sold through retail this month than did DS software in November 2004.”

“Now that we’re reporting on games at the title rather than SKU level, it’s important to note several that sold well and would have made the top 10 on a SKU unit sales ranking basis.  Those include Just Dance 2 on Wii, Killzone 3 on PS3, and Zumba Fitness on Wii.”

Accessories

“The number one accessory SKU for March 2011 was the $20 PS3 Network Card, which is the second time since its introduction in June ’08 that it has ranked first. This is another indication of digital growth across consoles and how physical retailers are participating.”