Game Consoles Sell Over 3.2 Million Units in November

Ground Glass writes "While there wasn't any question that November was going to be a huge month for gaming (what with those two consoles coming out and all), it's still impressive to see the numbers. In short, Nintendo's DS was the big winner with over 600,000 units sold, though the Wii and Xbox 360 also each broke half a million. The PS3 probably came in at around 200K all told for the month. Convert those numbers into dollars and you're looking at one very fat and happy industry." From the Next Generation article: "In its monthly report analyst Arcadia Investment says console sales in November topped 3.2 million units. Arcadia says hardware sales increased by at least 50% year on year, with software up about 20%. Retail dollars increased by about 25-30% to about $1.6 billion, compared to $1.3 billion in November 2005. "

DS + Wii vs. PSP + PS3

[seebs]

Remember when Nintendo had a game machine that was low-powered, but had an innovative control scheme many initially derided as gimmicky, and it was in direct competition with a higher-powered, much more expensive, Sony product which could play movies in a new and effectively proprietary format?

Apparently, it wasn't a bad plan.

Ranked in terms of consoles sold last month:

[paladinwannabe2]

(Numbers are approximate, they didn't have exact numbers in the article)
DS (600K+) > XBox360 (500K++) > PS2 (500K+) > Wii (500K) > PSP (350K) > PS3 (~200K)


It looks like the PS2 and the Xbox 360 are both outselling the new consoles- which is surprising to me. Still, it seems Nintendo is the big winner, since they are selling an average of two games per Wii on top of actually selling a console for a profit. Microsoft seems to be doing a lot better with their 360 sales than I expected they would- I guess people decided getting a Wii or PS3 wasn't worth the effort when there was an good console readily available.

Units sold doesn't necessarily mean profit

[Straif]

Of the big 3, generally only Nintendo actually makes a profit off their gaming systems in the first year of release.

By some estimates Sony is subsidizing the PS3 to the tune of $300/unit while Microsoft is probably just about breaking even on systems. The big money for Microsoft and Sony comes from game sales, and the only solid numbers I've seen in that category were for Zelda units for the Wii (400k+).

So on the money side Nintendo has made a hefty profit from their 1.1 million+ units sold, Microsoft, having learned their lesson the the original XBox is probably doing ok especially with their major head start in game sales, while Sony needs to get more of their systems into peoples homes to try and generate more disc sales. Sony's saving grace may be that they'll also get money from the boost in blu-ray movie sales.

Re:Ranked in terms of consoles sold last month:

[AuMatar]

The Wii and PS3 are hampered by availability. Although if I were Sony, the high volume of PS2 would scare me- all the PS3 brings to the table is more power. If people are still buying the PS2, then power won't be enough. It puts the Wii in a real spot to win this round, as they aren't counting on the processing power to win.

Well, at least Nintendo is happy ...

[Frag-A-Muffin]

"Convert those numbers into dollars and you're looking at one very fat and happy industry."

The only people we know for sure that's happy about all those consoles being moved is Nintendo.

*(1) Although, if you take console sales as an indirect indicator of software sales, then yes, the other guys would be happy too. More on this later

What we do know is this:

* Nintendo makes money on the Wii, right out of the gate.
* Nintendo makes money on each DS Lite sold.
* Sony's PS3 is losing $200-$300US (we don't exactly how much they're losing, but most analysts say about that range)
* Sony's PS2 hardware is profitable now.
* Microsoft was losing money on the Xbox360 at launch, but they've been working hard to reduce the cost to produce the 360, so it may be breaking even at this point. Only Microsoft knows.

So, Nintendo is certainly happy, Sony is happy PS2 still rakes it in but doesn't make up for PS3's enourmous costs, and Microsoft is happy to just be in the fight :)

*(1) Consoles moved means more software sales, which is where Microsoft and Sony plan to make their money back. (Nintendo makes money from selling ANYTHING with Nintendo on it, so we know they'll make money on software. They arguably make the most on software than any other single console game producer) Seems the internet believes Microsoft is enjoying a good software sales rate for their xbox360, they won't say of course. Meanwhile, Sony is just mum. Why? well, doesn't seem the attach rate for the PS3 is doing so hot in the US [ign.com] or Japan [joystiq.com]. So Sony's still far away from making money on their new system.

My point? The industry may or may not be happy, we don't know for sure, but we do know, Nintendo is happy with these numbers :)

PS WTF's with the 0.98 attach rate for PS3 in Japan?! That's amazing to me. I know lots of people are flipping these on ebay, but even in the land of the rising sun, people aren't buying it to play games. That's bad news. Japan's a huge Sony supporter. If they lose Japan, they're in trouble.

Re:MS rumored to be making $75 per console sold

[aricept]

Not to say that the numbers are not incorrect, but the number listed for "Motherboard" on the side by side comparison includes everything ON the MB - CPU, GPU, memory; you can tally the numbers from the first list of individual parts.

Channel Stuffing

[Boogaroo]

So it looks like Microsoft is trying to flood the retail stores in an attempt to be able to claim some shipped console number near 10 million. Can't be a smart move since there are going to be piles of 360s sitting around for the next few months and they are going to have to undership next quarter and any little benefit they get from claiming higher shipment numbers now will be offset with the reciprocal low shipment news next quarter.

There's a dirty little trick there that Sony's used before. What you do is recall the overshipment, and then re-ship to places that need it. You get to count those consoles as shipped twice. Nice isn't it?