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Why Robin Makes Batman Better When just one of your platforms does more than a half-billion dollars in revenue, we’d expect you to be pleased. Unsurprisingly, Nintendo seems to be, bragging about the 3.6 million systems it sold last month in the US.
The Xbox 360 had a solid, more spectacular November in the US than it did last year, which Microsoft is calling its “Biggest November Ever.” It took a few shots at its PlayStation competition while doing so.
Half-Life, the first-person shooter that put Valve on the map, has sold, on average, almost a million copies each year since its release in 1998. It’s still the company’s best seller—and that’s just at retail.
Hey, guess what platform exclusive games have sold over a million copies in the UK recently? Why, it’s Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit, of course.
Ubisoft extended its sales plumage earlier today, proudly boasting that the Ubisoft Montreal-developed Far Cry 2 has already sold through 1 million copies since its October 21st launch. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the game is “well on track to achieve our expectations for the year.” Someone has high expectations!
Nintendo, the house of smiles, innovates once again. This time, it puts a unique and charming spin on responding to NPD sales data, in which it crushed the competition on the hardware side and showed spectacularly on the software side.
First out of the gate? Microsoft! The Xbox 360 division at Microsoft was so pumped, so jazzed, so bursting with frightening Ballmer-like enthusiasm about September’s NPD sales data, it couldn’t wait for the official numbers to go public. The Xbox 360 topped software charts and jumped to third place on the hardware front following a hefty price drop. And who wouldn’t be pumped with “the most affordable next generation console on the market” and “$US326 million in total consumer spend in the U.S. and a record software attach rate of 8.1″? This is shouting from the hilltops kind of data.
Ah, Sony, the kings of the percentage. The masters of momentum. You can weave year-to-date and year-over-year sales data into beautiful corporate prose, a captivating narrative dance of figures that makes our heads swim. You may get some flack for your unexciting PlayStation 3 sales, but when you talk about the success of the PlayStation family, we remember why we like you.
Sony counters a million Madden 09s on the Xbox 360 with a 1.1 million figure across the entire PlayStation brand — and they’re nice enough to not even count the Madden NFL 09 PSP Entertainment Pack. That would just be rubbing it in.
This month’s best percentage manipulation? A 38% higher attach rate for Soulcalibur IV on the PS3. And they even spell the name of the game right! This is veteran stuff.
CEO Jack Tretton caps it off nicely, saying that Sony’s August performance “validates that consumers are indeed recognising the long-term value that PS3 offers as both a gaming and home entertainment device”. Couldn’t have said it better if we had a dozen corporate communications staffers on our side.
There’s little for Nintendo to say following another month of just doing the same old, same old — selling nearly a million hardware units and just barely keeping up with demand. Another half-million Nintendo DSs? Check. That ticks the install base to nearly 22 million. Nearly another half-million Wiis? 12 million strong install base, here they come.
And then there’s the software. More Wii Play, more Mario Kart, more Wii Fit. Stop this merry-go-round of consistency! We want to get off!
We don’t know how Nintendo’s executive VP of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway can keep coming up with things to say, in the light of such positivity. We’re wondering if the corporate response will ever just consist of a shrug and a head-cock. Your corporate gloat awaits you.
Say! Did you hear about the Xbox 360 price drop? If not, Microsoft wants to remind you with its response to August NPD sales data! Last month, it ruled the software charts with strong Madden NFL 09 sales and, well, didn’t place behind the PlayStation 3 for the first time in three months, making August extra sweet. Microsoft’s chief talking point for the month? Sports!
Microsoft seems pretty pleased with its fourth place hardware showing, bringing its established U.S. install base to 10.9 million. But it’s positively beaming over August’s EA Sports-driven performance, with a million Maddens and 56,000 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09s sold in garish green DVD cases.
It also feels good, in a corporate sense, about its attach rate, now an even 8.0. This post’s official Microsoft response attach rate is a measly 1.0 in comparison. :( We’re working on it!
