NPD Group has issued its console hardware sales data for November 2009. As you know, November is a huge month for gaming, with several retailers running “Black Friday” specials and lots of people shopping for holiday gifts. Let’s take a look at the numbers.
- Nintendo DS: 1,700,000
- Wii: 1,260,000
- Xbox 360: 819,500
- PlayStation 3: 710,400
- PlayStation Portable: 293,900
- PlayStation 2: 203,100
As expected, Nintendo trounced the competition with its Wii home console and DS handheld system. Nintendo topping the charts is nothing new. What’s more interesting is the battle between Microsoft and Sony. While both companies did well, Sony has to be slightly disappointed that its PS3 lost out to the Xbox 360 after outselling it in September and October. That’s just a short-term concern for Sony; things are still looking up for the PS3, which had its third-best month ever. Overall, hardware sales were down 13.4 percent from November 2008, but keep in mind that all three consoles were more expensive last year.
What do you make of November’s numbers? Anything surprise you? Any predictions for December?
I am quite shocked that PS3 came up short. All the reports were saying that it was doing so well, but it also depends on how you look at things. Considering total hardware sales, Sony was right behind Nintendo with 1.2+ million in sales, leaving Microsoft behind in third. I believe once Sony gives the PS2 the Viking Funeral it so rightfully deserves that those 203,100 PS2 sales will turn into PS3 sales.
@SkullOne360 "All the reports were saying that it was doing so well"
It did do well. Microsoft just did better.
also, these are NORTH AMERICAN numbers….put the global numbers up and lets see who comes out ahead
Also, compare the sales spike to the huge game release this month. MW2 moved 360s better then anything they put out this year. I would look for the numbers to seesaw slightly for December. Nice to see 700k+ move for Sony though.
@ Thundercracker
Please don't turn this into that other site. Seriously… who cares?
If I owned stock I might care… even then, I wouldn't complain about it to you guys.
so what you are saying is that ray shouldnt have posted this article
…No, I'm saying these are the numbers for North America. If you want them to be different, go buy 100,000 PS3's.
You could use them to track child predators.
i didnt intimate that i had any desire for the playstation to outsell the 360 domestically
i simply stated that, when looked at globally, sony should have sold more units
this statement was in response to this:
Sony has to be slightly disappointed that its PS3 lost out to the Xbox 360
now, if youll excuse me, ive got a lead on a pedaphile in henrico county
@skullone
That is one hell of an assumption to think that those PS2 sales would translate into PS3 sales. Similar to the RIAA and MPAA stance of "if you wouldn't have pirated it, you would have bought it". No basis in that statement.
@thundercracker
Global sales are skewed. Example, Japanese do not care for something so "un-japanese". Xenophobia is rampant in some sectors of their pop culture. It would be a bad representative sample.
I get what you are saying though. Lies, damn lies, and statistics though….
Let's also not forget some of the Black Friday deals clearly played into these sales numbers. I think Best Buy was offering 360 Elites + 6 games for $299.
Irregardless, I'm sure Sony's more than pleased to have moved over 700,000 units this year. That's a good number. They moved 320,000 units in October, so that's more than a 100% jump.
hey! irregardless is not a word!
lol
@Smartguy: Firefox says it is.
@nightshade
it's a double negative. it's not frowned upon in casual writing (blog comments). it's as strange as unravel.
i was just poking fun this morning.
ive always said comparing the xbox sales to the ps3 sales is apples to oranges almost, and should almost be an irrelevant comparison.
tweens move the market, more millioniares have been made in this country by 12 year olds than any other demographic…look at all the horrible pop music, boy bands, miley cyrus, the olsen twins, etc etc etc…
you havent really made it in this country unless there are 12 year old white kids buying your product….this is why games like mass effect and uncharted dont sell boatloads.
is halo really 8 times better than uncharted, mass effect, left 4 dead or killzone? Sales numbers would suggest that. Sales mean crap
@Smartguy: Eh, no worries. I got a neck injection for a bulging disc yesterday. I've been in a pretty salty mood since then.
@nightshade
dont take this the wrong way, but it seems like youve had your share of problems lately..heres to a better new year for yourself and your family
irregardless = with regards
@ Thundercracker
I'm not trying to come down on you. I looked at a similar thread on that other site yesterday and it was full of people saying "this don't mean crap… look at worldwide sales… PS3 pwns!"
Flamers… the lot of them.
@Thundercracker: Thanks man. It's been a rough patch. Hopefully these injections will help and I'll avoid surgery.
you are right in the sense that i worded that first comment quite poorly…..old habits i spose
and to be honest, im not sure that you COULD offend me at this point
speaking of offensive….wtf is up with the aluminum curtain?
that being said, i aspire to one day be able to say that i root for a 6-7 professional football team
@N8R: I feel your pain in regards to the Steelers. My wife's a Pittsburgh native/fan and she spent a good portion of the evening moping around the house after the lost to the lowly Browns last night.
IR – negative prefix
less – negative suffix
irregardless = double negative; improper English. Fully acceptable in blog comments. Unacceptable in journals, college papers, and professional documents.
@Thundercracker
cheer for the saints then.
@topic – To be honest I'm a little surprised myself. I thought for sure Xbox 360 would be tailing PS3 last month. Mostly because it sounded like PS3 had a much bigger black friday than MS.
Globally I expect the PS3 to outsell the 360 this gen but I just don't see how PS3 is ever going to overtake 360 in the US. Of course if the Wii is any indication none of this 1st place, 2nd place stuff really matters to core gamers.
@ Steelers
I believe "paper curtain" is more fitting for us being as how Big Ben got sacked 8 times by the Brownies.
In defense, neither team played well yesterday. I believe I'm quoted saying "cold as Palin's nipples" in Cleveland yesterday. It was 14 degrees with a wind chill making it -19 degrees on the field… if anyone here has ever tried to do ANYTHING in weather like that, you know it's not easy.
You could tell on all the Steelers' faces "I don't give a damn about the playoffs, I just want to go inside… dibs on the hot tub."
WAY OFF TOPIC:
Anyone know what I can do to get my 150Gb Raptor working again. Just stopped reading, shows no data. I looked into data recovery but its 180/hr locally.
@Word Blunders – from Dictionary.com
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
I love that it uses the terms improper yoking and logical absurdity to describe what basically amounts to the central krux of the english language… we just really don't care.
@slicky
over my head man. Wish I could help.
@steelers. I've been giving one of my roommate a pretty hard time about the steelers this year. Mostly because I always get such a hard time about my team (colts). But this us my year because the teams I dont like (steelers, patriots, bears) seemed to just drop out this year, and my team is still undefeated (still not the best, just unbeaten)
@topic. I did not expect to see that many DS units sold. That was impressive. And I did fully expect the ps3 to outsell the 360, so that was a pleasant surprise.
@Slicky – 150GB? Sounds like an older drive. you might be in trouble man. is it an external HDD or internal? could be a power problem or connection problem. If the drive has failed to read it may cost you quite a bit. There are a couple of programs out there that can save HDDs but it depends on how bad yours is.
@ #30 I shouldn't say save HDDs but there are a couple of programs that offer data recovery.
I think you can add DSi sales to that DS figure without really rocking the boat.
Its is older. The raptor spins at 10,000 rpm and it only came in 2 flavors 74Gb and 150Gb, now replaced by the velociraptor.
My Windows XP stopped booting one day so I tried to do a windows repair. It wouldn't complete. Come to find out a stick of my RAM had gone bad. But since I had tried to repair windows it wouldn't boot after I removed the bum stick of RAM. So I bought windows 7 professional through the college for $30. I installed it on a different drive. When I plugged up my Raptor it shows up in windows explorer but without any info on drive size and I cannot access it. From administrative services in XP i can see the drive and size, but when I try to format it it fails. The drive spins also. Just doesn't work. Am I screwed?
Surprised by the results but congrats to everyone.
@RRoD: Considering the PS3 only sold 378,000 units last November, it's hard to gripe about an 88% sales increase. I told you a number of times at that "other" site that the big thing holding me back from finally buying one was that the old price point was absurd (and a lack of games that appealed to me, a situation that is also being remedied as of late). Seems like most consumers agree.
@Slicky – it's really hard to tell, it's a good sign that it shows up. Try doing a google search for HDD recovery software. I'm only familiar with one for Apple, called. It's a risk cause you're going to spend 60-100 bucks for it but it's well worth it if you can recover your stuff, you know?
@RROD
Nightshade is absolutely correct. You have to look at sales this time last year. I'm sure Sony is loving what they are seeing.
do you guys think sony cares about the competition?
off topic
HI SMARTGUY! HI N8R! HI SHOCKWAVE! HI THUNDERCRACKER! HI LARCENOUS! HI RROD! HI RPAD!
Yes they care….otherwise they'd never have introduced new hardware, pricing, network store, etc. In order to be competitive you have to show internal improvements and advances..which is what Sony is doing compared to this time last year.
HI RBEE, enema lover.
@smartguy
hm, good point, maybe they just keep their heads low all the time or something. i just dont see that much bashing against microsoft or nintendo these past few months from them.
enemas will cure colon cancer. just you wait
@Nightshade
Yeah, the $600 price tag was a deterrent for many. I bought it at that price and felt it was a good deal. Just don't say it was overpriced. How can it be overpriced when Sony didn't make a dime on it and was losing money on each one sold and still is. I also bought the Xbox when it was $400 and you already know how that turned out, no need to type it again. I've never paid so much money for such a shoddy product in my life. I just can't give them any more of my business this gen. Maybe next, but I will wait a year to see how the failure rate is though.
@Smartguy
I know Sony is very happy with their numbers, that why I said congrats to all.
I think the initial price was too steep. Considering the demographic that early adopts game consoles are younger males….$600 was a good bit. For what was in the machine, def a good value….but as a game console? Nope. Real value? Yes. Practical value? No.
Glad it's at a very competitive price point now though.
How you think Falcons will do this weekend?
@rpad
ok, so im playing dragon age right now, im playing my mage, im in orzammar, is there any good equipment for mages is hould know about here in orzamar?
RRoD: Basic economics says that if your product isn't selling, and a competitive product which is priced significantly lower is, your product is overpriced. That's not to say it wasn't a good value for the tech, but $600 for a gaming system is a lot of bones to swallow.
@Rbee: Mage equipment is somewhat scarce in Dragon Age, particularly in Orzammar since no Dwarves are Mages. However spell power definitely makes up for a lack of good Mage equipment.
@rbee90 Not that I can think of off the top of my head. Orzammar has the best dagger in the game, a decent piece of light armor, and a hidden 2H sword. For mage stuff, The Circle Tower and The Wonders of Thedras have great stuff.
@nightshade (HI NIGHTSHADE!!!)
i know, i even stole wynne's enchanted staff, and my armor has been the same after i went through the circle of magi. mage robes and an enchanter's cowl. i just want my mage to be better than my warriors
@Smartguy
Go to the consoles sales topic.
Really good points from Smartguy and Nightshade – I felt the PS3 was worth it to but it's almost like the PS3 was too good for itself when it came out. Kind of like the 3DO of today. Now that the price is competitive it's obvious that was what was holding it back.
Hi Rbee – I was hoping for more mage equipment too. Good staffs are usually frequently found but I rarely used my staff for attacks if I could avoid it. I just went with a light – Medium Armor for my mage. worked out pretty well. The Drake Scale armor is perfect for your mage
@ R Pad
I just like the evil connotations when alluding to it as "that other site"…. and I think it's funny.
@ rbee
Hi.
@Rbee90
Howdy.
@Shockwave562 I think it was smart of BioWare not to include too many high powered mage items. Mages are — by far — the most powerful class in the game. Giving them premium gear would have made them even more ridiculous.
Hi Rbee
@ray
yeah, i know, its unfortunate…id like to see some global sales figures, otherwise, how the hell will we know who really won ANY console war?
@thundercracker The global number eventually become available, but they're not as timely as what NPD reports and even those numbers are based on estimates, since the company does not receive data from some major retailers.
@thundercracker I don’t know of anyone that collects global numbers as accurately and quickly as NPD posts American numbers. If there was a good source, I’d post it. And no, VGchartz is not a good source.
@N8R You don’t have to call it “the other site”. It’s not Lord Voldemort. Every day I get some people that find my site combining my name with either “g4tv.com” or “thefeed”. I’d probably get a teeny bit more traffic if those words appeared more in the comments. Ha!
Pretty well done all around. I finally took the leap and contributed +1 to the Wii sales last year lol. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, In fact, I kind of like it.