October NPD Sales Data

Hardware sales for October were largely in line with the market's expectations. Total hardware units came in at 1.75 million units, just 0.57% ahead of the market's expected 1.74 million units.

As expected by the market, the Nintendo Wii lead hardware sales with 519,000 units, beating the expected 470,600 units. Xbox 360 came in second for home consoles with 366,000 units sold, just 8.18% below the market's expectation of 398,600 units. Once again, the PS3 came in third with 121,000 units sold, once again disappointing the market, which had expected 149,400 units.

Nintendo DS sales came in line at 458,000 units, compared to 467,400 expected unit sales. The PSP sold 286,000, beating expectations of 254,100 units.

Growth in video game sales was slightly below market expectations. Total video game software sales grew 39% from $369.3 million in October 2006 to $513.9 million. This was 7.19% below the market's expected $553.7 million.

The month's big winner, Activision's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, came in line with the market's expectations. For the Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 SKUs tracked by the simExchange in October, the game sold 882,900 units, just 1.22% above the market's expectation of 872,300 units.

This was the first month an NPD Future included a PC game. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC) sold 18,600 units, far below the market's expectations of 124,300 units. This miss is likely due to a combination of smaller awareness of PC game sales, along with very disappointing sales.

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

• US Hardware in October 2007

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo Wii	519,000	470,600	+10.28%
  Nintendo DS	458,000	467,400	-2.01%
  Xbox 360	366,000	398,600	-8.18%
  PlayStation Portable	286,000	254,100	+12.55%
  PLAYSTATION 3	121,000	149,400	-19.01%
  Total Hardware Units	1,750,000	1,740,100	+0.57%

• US Software in October 2007

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Halo 3 (Xbox 360)	433,800	723,200	-40.02%
  2	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360)	490,800	548,100	-10.45%
  3	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii)	286,300	211,400	+35.43%
  4	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) w/ Guitar	271,100	--	--
  5	The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)	262,800	270,600	-2.88%
  6	Wii Play w/ Remote	239,700	--	--
  7	Half-life 2: The Orange Box (Xbox 360)	238,400	420,300	-43.28%
  8	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) stand-alone	231,700	--	--
  9	FIFA Soccer 08 (PS2)	129,700	--	--
  10	Brain Age 2 (DS)	116,900	--	--
  NR	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3)	105,800	112,800	-6.21%
  NR	Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)	98,100	127,700	-23.18%
  NR	Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)	74,500	129,200	-42.34%
  NR	Project Gotham Racing 4 (Xbox 360)	38,300	81,100	-52.77%
  NR	Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC)	18,600	124,300	-85.04%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	2,047,400	3,058,860	-38.00%
  	Total Software Sales	$513.9 million	$553.7 million	-7.19%

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.

Please provide you readers some context of what the simExchange is and how our forecasts work, example: "The simExchange is an online virtual stock market in which gamers, developers, and investors trade stock to predict how games will sell."