April 2008 NPD Data

Video game hardware sales in April were well below the market's expectations. Total hardware units came in at 1,969,800 units (excluding the PlayStation 2), 22.93% below the market's expected 2,201,500 units.

Nintendo Wii was the only console to sell in-line with market expcations, selling 714,200 units compared to an expected 688,100 units.

The Xbox 360 slid by the PS3 once again with 188,000 units sold against the PS3's 187,100 units. Both platforms underperformed the markets expectations. The market had likely expected Xbox 360 and PS3 sales to be higher from the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. It appears the massive title was not able to move more hardware units.

The Nintendo DS sold 414,800 units compared to the expected 600,100 units. The Sony PSP sold 192,700 units, compared to the expected 257,700 units.

Growth in video game sales were below expectations for April. Total video game software sales grew 68% from $389.4 million in April 2007 to $654.7 million. Traders on the simExchange prediction market expected $978.4 million. Much larger sales growth was expected due to the release of blockbusters Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart. It appears these titles underperformed the market's expectations and also cannibalized sales of other games.

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

• US Hardware in April 2008

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo Wii	714,200	688,100	+3.79%
  Nintendo DS	414,800	600,100	-30.88%
  PlayStation Portable	192,700	257,700	-25.22%
  Xbox 360	188,000	335,000	-43.88%
  PLAYSTATION 3	187,100	320,600	-41.64%
  PlayStation 2	124,400	--	--
  Total Hardware Units	1,969,800	2,201,500	-22.93%

• US Software in April 2008

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360)	1,850,000	2,296,700	-19.45%
  2	Mario Kart (Wii)	1,120,000	1,117,000	-4.84%
  3	Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3)	1,000,000	1,328,300	-24.72%
  4	Wii Play (Wii)	360,000	--	--
  5	Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)	326,000	567,000	-42.50%
  6	Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (PS3)	224,000	322,100	-30.46%
  7	Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (DS)	202,000	--	--
  8	Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (DS)	202,000	--	--
  9	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii)	152,000	--	--
  10	Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)	141,000	--	--
  NR	Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Xbox 360)	103,500	254,700	-59.36%
  NR	God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP)	64,000	90,000	-28.89%
  NR	The World Ends With You (DS)	43,000	73,800	-41.73%
  NR	Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword (DS)	23,700	33,000	-28.18%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	4,754,200	6,142,600	-22.60%
  	Total Software Sales	$654.7M	$978.4M	-33.08%

How exactly does this work?

Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using virtual currency called DKP, players buy virtual futures contracts that are under-predicting sales and short sell futures that are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market."

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).