July 2009 NPD Sales Data

Video game hardware sales in July 2009 underperformed market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1.24 million, about 8% worse than the market's expectation for 1.35 million units sold. Every console underperformed their respective expected sales except for the Xbox 360. Anita Frazier of the NPD Group notes that "the Xbox 360 is the only console system showing a unit sales increase year-to-date."

"The U.S. video games industry declined for the fifth consecutive month, bringing year-to-date sales to $8.16 billion, down 14% from the same time period last year," says Frazier. July software sales were significantly worse than expected, coming in at $436.99 million compared to the market's forecasted $554.1 million.

Sales of new releases Wii Sports Resort (Wii), NCAA Football 10 (Xbox 360), and NCAA Football 10 (PS3) were nearly spot on with traders' predictions, with single digit errors. However, Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360) significantly underperformed, selling 35% below expectations.

Sales of Nintendo's Wii Fit (Wii) and Wii Play (Wii) both sold well below expectations, possibly cannibalized by the new Wii Sports Resort.

The market also tracked the sales of Wii Play (Wii), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 9.68 DKP.

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

• US Hardware in July 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	538,900	557,700	-3.37%
  Nintendo Wii	252,500	314,000	-19.59%
  Xbox 360	202,900	199,500	+1.70%
  PLAYSTATION 3	121,800	142,600	-14.59%
  PlayStation Portable	122,800	131,200	-6.40%
  PlayStation 2	108,000	--	--
  Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2)	1,238,900	1,345,000	-7.89%

• US Software in July 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Wii Sports Resort (Wii)	508,200	526,600	-3.49%
  2	NCAA Football 10 (Xbox 360)	376,500	409,300	-8.01%
  3	NCAA Football 10 (PS3)	237,400	250,800	-5.34%
  4	Wii Fit (Wii)	164,300	237,600	-30.85%
  5	Mario Kart (Wii)	156,600	--	--
  6	Mario Kart DS (DS)	132,200	--	--
  7	Pokemon Platinum (DS)	116,400	--	--
  8	Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360)	116,400	177,400	-34.39%
  9	New Super Mario Bros (DS)	101,800	--	--
  10	EA Sports Active (Wii)	96,800	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$436.99M	$554.1M	-21.14%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	1,402,800	1,601,700	-12.42%

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).