September 2009 NPD Sales Data

Video game hardware sales in September 2009 were in line with market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 2.02 million, 2.2% better than the market's expectation for 1.98 million units sold. PS3 led the pack, doubling its sales year-over-year, following a price cut to $299. Anita Frazier of NPD Group comments: "All three console manufacturers enjoyed the impact of lower prices on unit sales as the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 realized an increase over August of 87%,  33%, and 31% respectively, on an average sales per week basis (keeping in mind September was a 5-week month compared to 4-weeks in August)."

Growth in video game sales was positive year-over-year this month, posting a 5% gain. However, the $649.32 million in sales severely underperformed traders' expectations for $756.4 million in sales.

Frazier adds that "Halo 3: ODST realized impressive sales making it the 6th best-selling SKU launch of all time." However, its sales of 1.52 million units underperformed the market's expectations by 13.3%.

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

• US Hardware in September 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	524,200	632,700	-17.15%
  PLAYSTATION 3	491,800	426,000	+15.45%
  Nintendo Wii	462,800	397,900	+16.32%
  Xbox 360	352,600	339,000	+4.01%
  PlayStation Portable	190,400	183,000	+4.04%
  PlayStation 2	146,000	--	--
  Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2)	2,024,000	1,978,600	+2.18%

• US Software in September 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360)	1,520,000	1,752,800	-13.28%
  2	Wii Sports Resort (Wii)	442,900	--	--
  3	Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360)	289,600	--	--
  4	Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)	258,100	--	--
  5	The Beatles: Rock Band (Xbox 360)	254,000	358,800	-29.21%
  6	Madden NFL 10 (PS3)	246,500	--	--
  7	Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360)	236,000	253,000	-6.72%
  8	Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)	212,500	--	--
  9	Guitar Hero 5 (Xbox 360)	210,800	310,300	-32.07%
  10	The Beatles: Rock Band (Wii)	208,600	310,000	-32.71%
  	Total Software Sales	$649.32M	$756.4M	-14.16%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	2,429,400	2,984,900	-18.61%

The market also tracked the sales of Guitar Hero 5 (PS3), Guitar Hero 5 (Wii), Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (PS3), and Beatles: Rock Band (PS3) which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Futures for these games will cash out at 20.86 DKP.

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).