While we’ve touched briefly on the performance of two titles not making the top 10, let’s look at the other nine. Yes, nine, because DJ Hero’s sales were so dismal (it’s best-performing SKU being the 360 version, with 62,000 sold) that it couldn’t even make the top 20.

So, without further ado, here are October’s almost-there games.

11. Demon’s Souls (PS3, Atlus)
12. Brutal Legend (360, Electronic Arts)
13. FIFA Soccer 10 (PS3, Electronic Arts)
14. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS, Nintendo)
15. WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 (360, THQ)
16. Tekken 6 (PS3, Namco Bandai)
17. Borderlands (PS3, Take 2)
18. Madden NFL 10 (360, Electronic Arts)
19. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers Of Sky (DS, Nintendo)
20. Mario Kart Wii / Wheel (Wii, Nintendo)

Well played, Demon’s Souls! And well played FIFA (the 360 version was #10), showing that maybe, just maybe, Americans are coming around.

Music Games Aren’t Dead, Just Waiting to Be Reborn [Wired]

Brutal Legend managed to move 215,000 copies when you combine the figures from PS3 and 360. For a game with a niche appeal, that’s not too bad. But for a game that had Jack Black popping up every five seconds to promote it… yeah, maybe EA were hoping for a little more.

It’s a veritable Modern Warfare 2 when you compare it to DJ Hero, however, which only sold 122,300 units. Across four platforms. Yes, it was only on sale for five days in October (still a long enough time to pick up decent numbers), but this was Activision’s first crack at their own “Hero” game. It had an expensive marketing campaign, and was backed by heavyweights like Daft Punk, Jay-Z and DJ Shadow.

Then again, maybe that was the problem. My distaste for the game has always been down to its scattershot approach to its soundtrack: a little hip-hop here, a little electronica there, some dance, all meeting over some ill-advised pop remixes… it’s a mess. Perhaps it would have been better served picking, say, hip-hop and just running with that, so it was a must-have for at least one market.

That or not being $US120. Or making its song downloads $US3. Those might have helped, too.

Wonder if it’ll do any better in November…

Anyway, here’s the platform breakdown for those interested, courtesy of GameSpot:

Brutal Legend (360) – 150,000 units
Brutal Legend (PS3) – 66,000 units
DJ Hero (360) – 62,000 units
DJ Hero (PS3) – 39,000 units
DJ Hero (Wii) – 19,000 units
DJ Hero (PS2) – 3300 units

Brutal Legend sells 216K, DJ Hero 123K [GameSpot]

The month was packed with new software, including Forza Motorsport 3, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and NBA 2K10 which put big numbers on the board. And while the PS3 and Wii secured software spots one and two, respectively, the Xbox 360’s showing as a platform resulted in six of the top 10 games sold in the US this October. That’s a lot of royalty payments going Microsoft’s way.

The top 10 games for the month of October according to NPD are…

01. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) – 537,000
02. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 441,000
03. Borderlands (Xbox 360) – 418,000
04. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 314,000
05. NBA 2K10 (Xbox 360) – 311,000
06. Halo 3 ODST (Xbox 360) – 271,000
07. NBA 2K10 (PS3) – 213,000
08. Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360) – 175,000
09. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS) – 169,000
10. FIFA Soccer 10 (Xbox 360) – 156,000

That’s just a portion of the $US572.73 million that US consumers spent on video game software last month, down 18 per cent from the same period last year.

NPD’s Anita Frazier notes that about half of Wii Fit Plus’ sales for the month were of the bundled variety, meaning that plenty of Wii owners are investing in Wii Balance Boards for the first time.

“The top game for the month across all platforms was NBA 2K10, at 575K units,” Frazier says of 2K Sports’ latest. “It was a great launch for the game, outselling last year’s NBA 2K9 by 60 per cent in its launch month. Sales on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms improved substantially over last year.”

Now for the bad news.

“The music/dance genre saw big declines this month compared to last year,” Frazier notes. “The genre generated $US53 million in sales as compared to $US137 million last year. Both Rock Band: Beatles, and Guitar Hero 5 have the potential to be good gifting items for the holidays, so we should expect to see an uptick in sales over the next two months.”

The Wii moved more than a half a million million units to consumers in the United States last month, according to the NPD Group. That’s up from the 462,800 it moved in September and more than enough to best its closest competitor, the Nintendo DS.

Sony’s September to October performance was less fortunate, dropping from 491,800 to 320,600. On the Microsoft side, things were less worse, with Xbox 360 sales dipping from 352,600 in September to 249,700 in October. Without the sales boosting power of Halo 3: ODST, that puts Microsoft in fourth place in last month’s ranking.

Here’s how October treated console makers Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, according to NPD, whose reporting period ran from 10/4 to 10/31, a four week span compared to September’s five week span.

• Wii – 506,900
• Nintendo DS – 457,600
• PlayStation 3 – 320,600
• Xbox 360 – 249,700
• PSP – 174,600
• PlayStation 2 – 117,800

US consumers spent $US380.74 million on video game hardware last month, down 23 per cent from October 2008. While that’s not good — not good at all — there is a faint silver lining, according to NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier.

“The video games industry suffered another decline this month as compared to last October,” Frazier points out, adding “This is the third best October on record, behind October 2007 and October 2008.”

Frazier points to the Wii and Xbox 360 as “decreasing the most compared to October 2008″.

And, putting reporting period windows into perspective, Frazier outlines the positives from October.

“Compared to last month, which was a five-week month as compared to four weeks this month, Wii, PSP and NDS sales increased on an average sales per week basis, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 declined,” she says.

“On a year-to-date basis, only the Xbox 360 and the NDS have realised unit sales increases over the same time frame last year,” Frazier said, find a bit more silver. “While overall portable hardware unit sales are down, dollar sales are up thanks to an increase in the average selling price of portable hardware generated by the higher price points of the new portable systems and bundles.”

Thanks to the NPD Group for this month’s info.

According to NPD data released today, the Warner Bros. Interactive-published DS game sold nearly 194,000 copies in its first month on the market. That puts it behind Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days as the third bestselling DS game for the month.

Scribblenauts was one of only two third-party games to make it into the top ten bestselling games for Nintendo’s portable platform, a list dominated by Nintendo-published fare. While 5th Cell may already be hard at work on a new Xbox Live Arcade game, surely they won’t leaving money on the table by not producing a sequel, right? Right!

That makes Halo 3: ODST the bestselling game in the United States by a wide margin, outselling its nearest competitor, Wii Sports Resort, by more than a million copies. It’s not quite as impressive as the launch of Halo 3, which turned in 3.3 million copies when it launched, but clearly enough for the win.

ODST had some stiff competition in September, with new top ten software appearances from games like Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, the only portable game to chart, Madden NFL 10 and The Beatles: Rock Band. Superhero games also scored big, with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum moving more than 200,000 copies each on the Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively.

Here’s how September’s game sales worked out, by the numbers.

01. Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360) – 1,520,000
02. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 442,900
03. Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360) – 298,600
04. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS) – 258,100
05. The Beatles: Rock Band (Xbox 360) – 254,000
06. Madden NFL 10 (PS3) – 246,500
07. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360) – 236,000
08. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3) – 212,500
09. Guitar Hero 5 (Xbox 360) – 210,800
10. The Beatles: Rock Band (Wii) – 208,600

Game purchases for the month amounted to $US649.32 million, a five percent increase over the previous September. We’re sure the video game industry has already sent a thank you card to Bungie for the uncommon boost.

Here’s NPD analyst Anita Frazier’s take on the whole thing.

“Halo 3 certainly impacted the industry two years ago (Sep’07) when it was launched, and this year, Halo 3: ODST realised impressive sales making it the 6th best-selling SKU launch of all time. Five of the top 10 software items for the month were on the Xbox 360 platform.”

“We know all eyes are going to be on the Rock Band and Guitar Hero sales since the music/dance genre has been so closely followed by many this year. Both titles captured a spot in the top 10 for the month and at the item level, across all platforms, The Beatles: Rock Band came in third behind Halo 3: ODST and Madden NFL 10 while Guitar Hero 5 came in fourth. The Beatles: Rock Band achieved this level of success with an average retail price premium of 130% to the average retail price for software overall. The sales of Rock Band and Guitar Hero led the music/dance genre to a 72% dollar sales increase over September 2008.”

“Madden NFL 10 made up some ground this month. Although when launched in August the game sold 19% fewer units than its predecessor a year prior, with a second month of sales in, that deficit has been reduced to 13%, which bodes very well for the title through the holiday season.”

Sony’s recent price drop was in effect for the full month of September, more than doubling month-to-month PS3 sales to the tune of 491,800. That’s easily better than its nearest competitor, the Wii, which managed 462,800 units sold in the United States last month and well past Xbox 360 sales.

None of those consoles, however, managed to outsell Nintendo’s DS platform, which continues its six month streak atop the NPD Group’s hardware chart with another half-million plus sold.

• Nintendo DS – 524,200
• PlayStation 3 – 491,800
• Wii – 462,800
• Xbox 360 – 352,600
• PSP – 190,400
• PlayStation 2 – 146,000

Total hardware sales in the U.S. amounted to $US472.28 million during the month of September, which runs from 8/30 to 10/03, according to the NPD Group’s window. Speaking of NPD, here’s what analyst Anita Frazier had to say.

“All three console manufacturers enjoyed the impact of lower prices on unit sales as the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 realised an increase over August of 87%, 33%, and 31% respectively, on an average sales per week basis (keeping in mind September was a 5-week month compared to 4-weeks in August).”

“Compared to last September, the PS3 was the big winner, more than doubling last year’s sales,” Frazier notes. “This portrays a very strong consumer reaction to the price decrease as August and September both realised a lift of more than 70% over the prior month.”

Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst, explains in a press release that “consumers will be looking for the right gift, rather than the most extravagant or expensive one”. So while spending might be a little bit up from last year, it’s going to be on traditional stuff like books, sweaters, wallets and stuff.

Video games are still in the top 10 things people plan to buy as gifts, however — right above perfumes and food. The slight drop from last year’s level might even be because people would rather buy a video game for themselves and buy their buddy a video game-related accessory. Or book.

Check it out for yourself here.

Thanks, Jim!
Image Cred: ToyFare Issue No. 89 “Christmas on Infinite Earths”

The NPD Group’s David Riley has told MCV “The charts are needed in much the same way that retail and online tracking services are needed.”

“Objective third party tracking is essential to separating the wheat from the chaff. In other words, accurate tracking will provide a no-nonsense view of what’s happening on the publisher level, keeping away from the spin, and in some cases, misleading information that often appears on the internet.

“Misinformation can have a dramatic, negative impact on a publisher’s bottom line.”

A plug for their own services, sure, but also a welcome one. Provided, that is, every publisher/platform signs up for the service.
First digital chart coming to US? [MCV]

A comparison by Gamasutra, using NPD Group numbers, has shown that while software and hardware sales in August 2009 were down on 2008’s numbers, sales of “accessories” increased by 2.3%.

Of course, that did little to stem the overall year-on-year bleed for the industry as a whole, but still, it’s nice to find a positive amidst all the doom, no?

NPD: Behind the Numbers, August 2009 [Gamasutra]