February 2009 NPD Data

Video game hardware sales in February 2009 strongly outperformed market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 2,207,000, 19% better than the market's expectation for 1,853,900 units sold. Every console strongly outperformed their respective expected sales. The market had likely predicted the economic recession to take its toll with flat month-over-month video game sales, but the consumer appeared to be more robust than anticipated.

Growth in video game sales were nearly 10% ahead of expectations for February. Total video game software sales grew 9% from $673.3 million in February 2008 to $733.5 million. Traders on the simExchange prediction market expected $666.9 million.

Sales of Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360) were the highlight, selling 446,000 copies, a whole 65.5% ahead of expectations for the title.

The market also tracked the sales of FEAR 2: Project Origin (Xbox 360), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 13.6 DKP.

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

• US Hardware in February 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo Wii	753,000	669,300	+12.51%
  Nintendo DS	588,000	492,000	+19.51%
  Xbox 360	391,000	302,500	+29.26%
  PLAYSTATION 3	276,000	224,100	+23.16%
  PlayStation Portable	199,000	166,000	+19.88%
  PlayStation 2	131,000	--	--
  Total Hardware Units	2,207,000	1,853,900	+19.05%

• US Software in February 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Wii Fit (Wii)	644,000	559,800	+15.04%
  2	Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360)	446,000	269,400	+65.55%
  3	Street Fighter IV (PS3)	403,000	--	--
  4	Wii Play (Wii)	386,000	378,900	+1.87%
  5	Killzone 2 (PS3)	323,000	--	--
  6	Mario Kart (Wii)	263,000	--	--
  7	Call of Duty: World At War (Xbox 360)	193,000	156,700	+23.17%
  8	Mario Kart DS (DS)	145,000	--	--
  9	New Super Mario Bros (DS)	144,000	--	--
  10	Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii)	136,000	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$733.5M	$666.9M	+9.99%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	1,669,000	1,364,800	+22.29%

Where do the expected sales numbers come from?

The simExchange is the video game stock market. Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using fantasy money, players buy virtual stocks in video games they believe are under-predicting sales and short sell stocks they believe are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market." Sign up and play today.