December 2008 NPD Data

Video game hardware sales in December 2008 were inline with the market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 8,376,000 compared to the market's expectation for 8,812,000 units sold.

Nintendo Wii was the only console to sell below the market expcations, selling 2,150,000 units compared to an expected 3,030,000 units.

The Xbox 360 sold double that of the PS3 with 1,440,000 units sold against the PS3's 726,000 units. Both platforms were in line with the markets expectations.

The Nintendo DS sold 3,040,800 units compared to the expected 2,670,000 units. The Sony PSP sold 1,020,000 units, compared to the expected 935,900 units.

Growth in video game sales were ahead of expectations for December. Total video game software sales grew 15% from $2.39 billion in December 2007 to $2.75 billion. Traders on the simExchange prediction market expected $2.5 billion.

Most hardware and software sales were within 10% of the simExchange prediction market's expectations. The market also tracked the sales of Prince of Persia (Xbox 360), which did not make the top 10.

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

• US Hardware in December 2008

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	3,040,000	2,670,000	+13.86%
  Nintendo Wii	2,150,000	3,030,000	-29.04%
  Xbox 360	1,440,000	1,420,000	+1.41%
  PlayStation Portable	1,020,000	935,000	+9.09%
  PLAYSTATION 3	726,000	757,000	-4.10%
  PlayStation 2	410,000	--	--
  Total Hardware Units	8,376,000	8,812,000	-4.95%

• US Software in December 2008

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Wii Play (Wii)	1,460,000	1,350,000	+8.11%
  2	Call of Duty: World At War (Xbox 360)	1,330,000	799,000	+4.15%
  3	Wii Fit (Wii)	999,000	--	--
  4	Mario Kart (Wii)	979,000	--	--
  5	Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii)	850,000	716,000	+18.73%
  6	Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360)	745,000	799,000	-6.79%
  7	Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360)	629,000	--	--
  8	Mario Kart DS (DS)	540,000	--	--
  9	Call of Duty: World At War (PS3)	533,000	--	--
  10	Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)	497,000	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$2,750.0M	$2,492.5M	+10.33%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	4,385,000	4,142,700	+5.85%

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).