September 2007 NPD Data

Halo 3 outsold expectations of 2.93 million units with 3.3 million units sold for all three SKUs combined. The game drove Xbox 360 hardware sales to be the number one console for September, with 527,800 units sold, well ahead of market expectations of 452,600 units. Overall, the market had not expected Halo 3 sales to cannabilize the rest of the industry to such a degree. All other games tracked by the simExchange in September underperformed expectations.

Growth in the video game industry came inline with market predictions. Total video game software sales grew 46.7% from $445.4 million to $653.6 million. This was just 1.24% below the final trading's expectations of $661.8 million.

Sony's PS3 once again severly underperformed expectations, selling only 119,400 units in the five week retail month, compared with expectations for 159,100 units. The PSP, on the other hand, had a strong month with the release of the PSP Lite, selling 284,500 units compared to expectations at 291,000.

Sales of Nintendo's Wii continue strongly, despite the fact that the console had no major releases in September. Sales came in at 501,000 units, beating expectations of 468,600 units. The Nintendo DS was also exhibited strong sales, selling 495,000 units, just below market expectations of 498,300 units.

The most surprising result was that Halo 3 substantially took market share from all othe titles tracked in September. All other titles underperformed market expectations with the exception of Skate (Xbox 360). Although actuals for each individual title appear to be well below market expectations, total unit sales were actually only 7.29% below expectations.

The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group

• US Hardware in September 2007

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Xbox 360	527,800	452,600	+16.62%
  Nintendo Wii	501,000	468,600	+6.91%
  Nintendo DS	495,000	498,300	-0.66%
  PlayStation Portable	284,500	291,000	-2.23%
  PLAYSTATION 3	119,400	159,100	-24.95%
  Total Hardware Units	1,927,700	1,869,600	+3.11%

• US Software in September 2007

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Halo 3 (Xbox 360)	3,300,000	2,929,000	+12.67%
  2	Wii Play w/ Remote	282,000	--	--
  3	The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)	224,000	383,500	-41.59%
  4	Madden NFL 08 (PS2)	205,000	--	--
  5	Skate (Xbox 360)	175,000	150,500	+16.28%
  6	Madden NFL 08 (Xbox 360)	173,000	236,700	-26.91%
  7	Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)	167,000	262,600	-36.41%
  8	BioShock (Xbox 360)	150,000	285,100	-47.39%
  9	Brain Age 2 (DS)	141,200	182,200	-22.50%
  10	Heavenly Sword (PS3)	139,000	181,400	-23.37%
  NR	Stranglehold (Xbox 360)	104,200	249,800	-58.29%
  NR	Madden NFL 08 (PS3)	61,800	107,100	-42.30%
  NR	Lair (PS3)	57,800	94,300	-38.71%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	4,693,000	5,062,200	-7.29%
  	Total Software Sales	$653.6 million	$661.8 million	-1.24%

How exactly does this work?

Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using virtual currency called DKP, players buy virtual futures contracts that are under-predicting sales and short sell futures that are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market."

About the predictions

Predictions on the simExchange should become more accurate over time as (1) the diversity of the pool of traders increases and as (2) more accurate players are rewarded with more virtual currency for their accuracy (thereby enabling them to form more predictions) and less accurate players lose virtual currency (thereby discounting their ability to form more predictions).

Copyright and reprinting

The simExchange, LLC retains the right to the content of this article but permits the reprinting of this article with proper credit to the simExchange. Sales data published here includes data disclosed with permission by the NPD Group exclusively for the purpose of settling futures contracts on the simExchange.

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