February 2009 NPD Data
Video game hardware sales in February 2009 strongly outperformed market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 2,207,000, 19% better than the market's expectation for 1,853,900 units sold. Every console strongly outperformed their respective expected sales. The market had likely predicted the economic recession to take its toll with flat month-over-month video game sales, but the consumer appeared to be more robust than anticipated.
Growth in video game sales were nearly 10% ahead of expectations for February. Total video game software sales grew 9% from $673.3 million in February 2008 to $733.5 million. Traders on the simExchange prediction market expected $666.9 million.
Sales of Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360) were the highlight, selling 446,000 copies, a whole 65.5% ahead of expectations for the title.
The market also tracked the sales of FEAR 2: Project Origin (Xbox 360), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 13.6 DKP.
The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group.
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US Hardware in February 2009
Title Actual units Expected units % From Expected Nintendo Wii 753,000 669,300 +12.51% Nintendo DS 588,000 492,000 +19.51% Xbox 360 391,000 302,500 +29.26% PLAYSTATION 3 276,000 224,100 +23.16% PlayStation Portable 199,000 166,000 +19.88% PlayStation 2 131,000 -- -- Total Hardware Units 2,207,000 1,853,900 +19.05%
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US Software in February 2009
Rank Title Actual units Expected units % From Expected 1 Wii Fit (Wii) 644,000 559,800 +15.04% 2 Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360) 446,000 269,400 +65.55% 3 Street Fighter IV (PS3) 403,000 -- -- 4 Wii Play (Wii) 386,000 378,900 +1.87% 5 Killzone 2 (PS3) 323,000 -- -- 6 Mario Kart (Wii) 263,000 -- -- 7 Call of Duty: World At War (Xbox 360) 193,000 156,700 +23.17% 8 Mario Kart DS (DS) 145,000 -- -- 9 New Super Mario Bros (DS) 144,000 -- -- 10 Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii) 136,000 -- -- Total Software Sales $733.5M $666.9M +9.99% Total Tracked Software Units 1,669,000 1,364,800 +22.29% 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.
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Discussion - Submit a comment
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@apujanata,
I see, I just think you'll really be missing out on some of the best games on PS3, 360, etc if you feel content with just getting the same genres within other games.
Now I understand why you're so big on VC. I hope I don't get "bandwithed".[ Oracle ] [ Level 26 ] [ Rank: 241 ]bids
1@Joe80,
I knew about Valkyria Chronicles, however, that game will not be a deciding factor for me. Why ? Because there are lots of SRPG on DS, and I already have Fire Emblem on Wii. As long as there are continuous supply of SRPG games on either NDS (the only portable I own) or Wii (the only console I own) or PS2, I don't need to buy PS3 or X360 to play SRPG.
About bandwidth factor, it is $ based on bandwidth. If I exceed my monthly quota (which is ridiculously low), I will have to pay more (roughly 5 cents / MB), which is one of the main reason (but not the only reason) I stayed away from online related activities, especially ones that are bandwidth intensive (like downloading demo, DLC etc). I like Nintendo's Wii VC, since the size of each game (NES and SNES) are small :).[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1@apujanata,
I didn't go long until you suggested trading it lol. My fault though for not checking your profile.
@DrMarioKart,
Some (most?) developers/publishers decide on whether or not there will be DLC ahead of time because it needs to be budgeted. Unless yes they basically leave stuff out of the game.
@apujanata,
Valkyria Chronicles is strategy RPG.
By bandwith factor do you mean you don't have fast enough connection or that you have to pay $ based on how much bandwith you use?[ Oracle ] [ Level 26 ] [ Rank: 241 ]bids
1@Joe80,
I also didn't realize that you were long on Tekken 6, otherwise I wouldn't suggested you to short it. :)
I could be wrong on this one, just like I were wrong on SFIV, but I have a feeling that I am right on Tekken 6. Let's wait and see.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1@apujanata,
I just saw that you were short on Tekken 6. When you suggested it to me I thought you were long lol as I took a long position in it. But I did feel good about doing that as I looked into it before going in.[ Oracle ] [ Level 26 ] [ Rank: 241 ]bids
1@apujanata,
Yes, it definitely does. Unfortunately, I forgot to check my positions before they were removed from my account page.[ Oracle ] [ Level 26 ] [ Rank: 241 ]bids
1@Joe80,
Well, my current Available to Short (idle money) is 20 Million, thanks to Feb Future Cash out and delisting. \
I am putting this margin as spare, for future investment, therefore I don't have any spare for GLS. I invested 18 Million DKP for Dec 08 short, so I need those idle money, for emergency (just-in-case).
If you have difficulty finding investment opportunity, you might want to look into Prototype and Tekken 6, two stocks that I invested significant into (show up in my public profile). Those 2 stocks still have significant profit margin (30%+, based on my prediction), since they are still far away from release. I didn't invest more in those stock because I decided to focus on future instead of GLS. Should I decide to invest more in the GLS in the future, those 2 stocks are the one I am going to focus (if their price are still the same as today's price).[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1@apujanata,
Im still not entirely sure if its reached the numbers yet or not, and being on different sides of the atlantic i dont get to speak to my uncle all that often to check up, so the bet is still pending.
And no, im not really investing in the exchange, i pop on occasionally to check how my outstanding investments are going, and maybe to pile a little more short at them, but no new investments, have too much work to do in the next 3 months to ensure i get the grades to get into uni. :)[ Oracle ] [ Level 22 ] [ Rank: 150 ]bids
1@Joe80,
Let's use example to make it clearer :
FEAR 2 X360, short :
Average Short Price (ASP) is 14.14, simEx freeze price is 12.96, and cash out price is 13.6.
From freeze price (12.96) to 13.6 (cash out price), I lost money (lost unrealized profit), but I still manage to profit, if you consider from ASP (14.14) to 13.6 (actual profit).
ASP (Average Selling Price) is the value that show up in my short price column, which is an average price of my short for FEAR 2 X360.
I hope this post make it clearer to you what I meant with that sentence.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1@apujanata,
What do you mean by losing money by losses from freeze price to cash out price but the actual investment is still giving you profit?
I seem to always have way too much money idle. I think for months I've had 22-28 million idle just because I did not see any places that I deemed worth putting it into. Now with the delistings it's gotten worse. Probably not the best way to trade.[ Oracle ] [ Level 26 ] [ Rank: 241 ]bids
1@wrangler_smoked,
I was shocked by the hardware sales for FEB. Those are huge year on year gains for some platforms and others holding their ground. Even PS3-I had expected it to sell even worse than it did. Perhaps people are really looking to video games for entertainment more and more as the economy worsens.
CON-FEB08-FEB09
360 255->391
PS3 281->276
Wii 432->753
DS 588->588
PSP 243->199[ Oracle ] [ Level 26 ] [ Rank: 241 ]bids
1@wrangler_smoked,
Well, I don't know whether I over-reacted or not, but I revised my March and April prediction #, and changed the Margin of Safety (MOS) a bit, to minimize possible losses in the future.
Even though I lost 1.3 Million yesterday just from Feb NPD futures, that is just the losses from freeze price to cash out price. The actual investment itself is still giving me profit (from investment price to cash out price), 155K profit from 7.7M investment is not good, but at least it is still a profit.
I would rather have lots of idle money with small losses, than lots of investment with losses, whether it is big loss or small loss.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
1@vGInfidel,
What is the status of your NERF bet ? Paid yet ?
Are you still investing in simEx ? I thought that you stopped investing because of time constrain ?[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
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1NPD Top 20
1. Wii Fit w/ Balance Board (Nintendo, Wii
2. Street Fighter IV (Capcom, Xbox 360)
3. Street Fighter IV (Capcom, PlayStation 3)
4. Wii Play w/Remote (Nintendo, Wii)
5. Killzone 2 (Sony, PlayStation 3)
6. Mario Kart w/Wheel (Nintendo, Wii)
7. Call Of Duty: World At War (Activision Blizzard, Xbox 360)
8. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, DS)
9. New Super Mario Bros (Nintendo, DS)
10. Guitar Hero World Tour (Activision Blizzard, Wii)
11. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (Warner Interactive, Xbox 360)
12. Skate 2 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360)
13. Left 4 Dead (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360)
14. NBA 2K9 (Take-Two, Xbox 360)
15. Halo 3 (Microsoft, Xbox 360)
16. Call of Duty: World At War (Activision, PS3)
17. Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga (LucasArts, Wii)
18. Guitar Hero: World Tour (Activision, Xbox 360)
19. My Fitness Coach (Ubisoft, Wii)
20. Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks, Xbox 360)[ Oracle ] [ Level 26 ] [ Rank: 241 ]bids
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3@apujanata,
Shorting anything this month at anything close to the closing prices would have yielded losses. First time in a while that's happened I reckon.[ Oracle ] [ Level 21 ] [ Rank: 291 ]bids
2@Powertrade,
Because the NPD period only include 2 days sales, and it is not 100% guaranteed that it can sell a lot on 2 days to break Top 10.
I am not doing well this month. I loss about 1 Million DKP compared to freeze time, although I still made 200K bonus from investment. I loss big on Street Fighter IV short.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 14935 ]bids
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I don't worry too much about missing out PS3/X360 games. I believe that I should be able to get backward compatibility for those games on either PS4 or next XBOX (whatever the name), or maybe some VC-like services on those platform. I didn't have N64 (no money at that time), and I can catch up with its games on Wii VC :). 10 years later is fine with me, since I still be able to enjoy Broken Sword Wii, a port of 10 year old PC game.