August 2009 NPD Sales Data

Video game hardware sales in August 2009 were inline with market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1.4 million, about 3.5% worse than the market's expectation for 1.35 million units sold. Sales figures this past month were likely buoyed by price custs. Anita Frazier of NPD Group comments that "The price cuts implemented on the PS3 and 360 hardware already made an impact on unit sales, despite having been executed fairly late in the month.  It will be interesting to see the full impact of the new price points on September sales."

"The industry realized its sixth consecutive month-over-month decline, and while improved over the last several months, it's still a notable decline.  The back four months of the year would have to be up 14% in aggregate for 2009 to come in flat in comparison to 2008 sales."

Sales of new releases Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360) and Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360) inline with traders' expectations.

The market also tracked the sales of Wii Play (Wii), G.I. JOE: The Rise of the Cobra (Xbox 360), and Wolfenstein (Xbox 360) which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Futures will cash out at 9.20 DKP.

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

• US Hardware in August 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	552,900	548,300	+0.84%
  Nintendo Wii	277,400	251,600	+10.25%
  Xbox 360	215,400	223,900	-3.80%
  PLAYSTATION 3	210,000	183,100	+14.69%
  PlayStation Portable	140,300	142,200	-6.40%
  PlayStation 2	105,900	--	--
  Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2)	1,396,000	1,349,100	+3.48%

• US Software in August 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360)	928,000	903,500	+2.71%
  2	Wii Sports Resort (Wii)	754,000	--	--
  3	Madden NFL 10 (PS3)	665,000	582,900	+14.08%
  4	Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360)	303,000	290,800	+4.20%
  5	Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)	290,000	--	--
  6	Madden NFL 10 (PS2)	160,000	--	--
  7	Dissidia: Final Fantasy (DS)	130,000	--	--
  8	Wii Fit (Wii)	128,000	167,500	-23.58%
  9	Mario Kart (Wii)	120,000	--	--
  10	Fossil Fighters	92,000	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$470.32M	$535.4M	-12.16%

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).