December 2009 NPD Sales Data

Video game hardware sales in December 2009 exceeded market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 10,444,700, 12.54% better than the market's expectation for 9,281,000 units sold. Hardware sales grew 16% over last year.

NPD Analyst Anita Frazier comments: "There are a lot of hardware records this month.  The PS3 realized it's biggest month of sales ever, and the first time sales have exceeded 1 million units.  The Wii and the DS also had their biggest sales months ever, and in fact the two platforms hold the top two spots in sales of any hardware device in a single month.  Overall, it was the biggest month of sales for hardware on both a dollar and unit basis."

Software sales came in 4.9% better than expected; however, this was still a 7% drop from December 2008.

Frazier adds: "The best-selling game of the month was New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which also captures the third spot on the annual top 10 list for 2009. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has become the fourth best-selling game of all time. In fact, 3 of the top 10 games of all time are Call of Duty games."

"Madden NFL 10 had a big month selling 1.5 million units across all platforms, besting last December's performance of the '09 game.  December's sales made up some of the lost ground realized out the gate when the title came to market in August."

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

• US Hardware in December 2009

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo Wii	3,810,000	2,979,800	+27.86%
  Nintendo DS	3,310,000	2,842,400	+16.45%
  Xbox 360	1,310,000	1,452,100	-9.79%
  PLAYSTATION 3	1,360,000	1,375,300	-1.11%
  PlayStation Portable	654,700	631,400	+3.69%
  PlayStation 2	333,200	--	--
  Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2)	10,444,700	9,281,000	+12.54%

• US Software in December 2009

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	New Super Mario Bros (Wii)	2,820,000	2,287,000	+23.31%
  2	Wii Fit Plus	2,410,000	--	--
  3	Wii Sports Resort (Wii)	1,790,000	1,151,900	+55.4%
  4	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360)	1,630,000	1,678,700	-2.9%
  5	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)	1,120,000	872,900	+28.31%
  6	Wii Play (Wii)	1,010,000	--	--
  7	Mario Kart (Wii)	936,100	--	--
  8	Assassin's Creed II (Xbox 360)	783,100	856,300	-8.55%
  9	Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360)	728,500	707,300	+3.00%
  10	Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)	656,700	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$2,580.0M	$2,458.7M	+4.93%
  	Total Tracked Software Units	8,871,600	9,229,600	-3.88%

The market also tracked the sales of Guitar Hero 5 (Wii), The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS), and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Wii), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Futures for these games will cash out at 65.67 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).