April 2009 NPD Data

Video game hardware sales in April 2009 significantly underperformed market expectations again. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1.8 million, 8.12% worse than the market's expectation for 1.96 million units sold. Every console except the Nintendo DS underperformed their respective expected sales. The Nintendo DS was an outlier due to the release of the new DSi model.

Anita Frazier of NPD Group commented, "the NDS platform accounted for 31 percent of total industry unit sales this month across all categories. Also notable is the performance of the PS2 which is now at the budget-friendly price point of $99.  Compared to March 2009, the PS2 sales rate almost doubled when comparing the two months on a same-week basis.  This is a testament to the impact a price reduction can have on hardware acquisition, with price being only second to compelling new content as a catalyst for hardware sales."

Growth in video game sales was once again negative year-over-year. Total video game software sales contracted a massive 23% from $660.1 million in April 2008 to $510.74 million. Traders on the simExchange prediction market expected $611.6 million in sales.

"While April sales might appear soft on the surface, it's important to remember that April is being compared against a month (April 2008) that realized nearly 50 percent growth over April 2007.  This year's performance still represents the second-best performance for the industry in the month of April, besting April 2007, which is the previous second-place holder, by 26 percent," says Frazier.

She continues: "Despite being compared against last year, when several big title releases drove both software sales and hardware acquisition, April 2009 was down only 5 percent on a unit sales basis, with the remainder of dollar sales decline coming from reduced average selling prices.  Easter fell in April this year which undoubtedly helped cushion the decline."

The market also tracked the sales of Halo Wars (Xbox 360), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 9.10 DKP.

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

• US Hardware in April 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	1,040,000	845,100	+23.06%
  Nintendo Wii	340,000	484,000	-29.75%
  Xbox 360	175,000	283,400	-38.25%
  PLAYSTATION 3	127,000	185,200	-31.43%
  PlayStation Portable	116,000	159,300	-27.18%
  PlayStation 2	172,000	--	--
  Total Hardware Units	1,798,000	1,957,000	-8.12%

• US Software in April 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Wii Fit (Wii)	471,000	528,600	-10.90%
  2	Pokemon Platinum (DS)	433,000	--	--
  3	Mario Kart (Wii)	210,000	--	--
  4	Wii Play (Wii)	170,000	282,900	-39.91%
  5	The Godfather II (Xbox 360)	155,000	188,600	-17.82%
  6	Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360)	122,000	172,800	-29.40%
  7	New Super Mario Bros (DS)	119,000	--	--
  8	Mario Kart DS (DS)	112,000	--	--
  9	Guitar Hero Aerosmith	110,000	--	--
  10	The Godfather II (PS3)	91,000	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$510.74M	$611.60M	-16.49%

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.

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).