It’s always amusing to see the spin the console makers put on the key monthly sales figures in the US, released by the NPD research firm.
The bald facts of the August stats just released are that Nintendo sold 453,000 Wiis (down more than 100,000 from 555,000 in July), Microsoft regained second place with 195,000 Xbox sales (down from 205,000) and Sony brought up the rear with 185,000 PS3s, down from 225,000.
Clearly, August was a slow month, but Microsoft’s sales held up better than its rivals, perhaps helped by the release of the latest instalment in Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL franchise – 1m copies were sold for the Xbox against 643,000 on the PS3 and only 116,000 on the Wii.
Sony’s spin on the figures consisted of a hint from Jack Tretton, its US chief, that a transition from 40Gb to 80 Gb models may have affected sales.
“We … began shipping the new 80GB PS3 model in late August to address any short term inventory transitions from the 40GB to 80GB model,” he said.
From January to August 2008, more than 2m PS3s had been sold in the US, representing a year-to-date hardware sales growth of more than 92 per cent, Sony emphasised.
Nintendo also focused on the bigger picture, saying its figures brought the lifetime US total to nearly 12m Wiis sold, “extending its lead as the best-selling video game console of this generation.” Microsoft has sold 10.9m Xboxes in the US.
Microsoft’s take was that the Xbox “owns sports games,” with Madden helping it to a record-breaking software attach rate averaging eight games per console.
The company expects a big boost in console sales in September, having reduced the Xbox Arcade version to $199 on September 5.
“Console sales across all Xbox 360 models were up over 100 per cent between Friday, September 5 and Sunday, September 7. The Xbox 360 Arcade system, now the lowest priced next generation console on the market at $199, showed the largest lift, selling at six times the rate it was the weekend before,” it said, citing Microsoft internal data.
