January 16th, 2009

2008 Video Game Sales Charts

I hope you're not tired with those video game statistics we talked about lately. Just one more, just one more, all right? Anyway, today's topic is video game sales of the last year, and we wouldn't be talking so much about it if 2008 wouldn't have been a record breaker for the gaming industry, despite the layoffs and closing studios announced in the last months.

Just think about the final numbers released by NPD Group, showing that US retailers got $21.33 billion in sales of gaming hardware, software, and accessories during last year, and this is NOT including the PC market! To compare this with 2007, it means 19 percent up, from the almost $18 billion brought in during that year. Impressive, huh?

While hardware sales were up 11 percent, software sales got up no less than 26 percent, which would be pretty impressive, but there's one fact I must point out - according to what I managed to figure out by taking a good look around during the entire year, prices for new games got up during 2008, and I think this is the main reason for such a solid rise.

Anyway, it is also funny to notice that the best seller of the year 2008 for the Wii was released way back in February 2007, and we're talking about Wii Play, with no less than 5.28 million copies, followed by Mario Kart Wii (5 million), Wii Fit (4.53 million), and Wii fighter Super Smash Bros. Brawl (4.17 million).

The entire video game sales charts from NPD Group are showing the following data(be patient, this is something you only see once in a year)...

Category / Total / Change
Video Games: $21.33 billion +19%
Video Games Hardware: $7.81 billion +11%
Video Games Software: $10.96 billion +26%
Video Game Accessories: $2.57 billion +14%

Game Software (in units sold)
1) Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 5.28 million
2) Mario Kart Wii (Wii, Nintendo) - 5 million
3) Wii Fit (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.53 million
4) Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.17 million
5) Grand Theft Auto IV (360, Take-Two) - 3.29 million
6) Call of Duty: World at War (360, Activision) - 2.75 million
7) Gears of War 2 (360, Microsoft) - 2.31 million
8) Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, Take-Two) - 1.89 million
9) Madden NFL 09 (360, Electronic Arts) - 1.87 million
10) Mario Kart DS (DS, Nintendo) - 1.65 million

THE NPD GROUP'S DECEMBER 2008 US GAME INDUSTRY SALES

Category / Total / Change
Video Games: $5.29 billion +9%
Video Games Hardware: $1.88 billion +2%
Video Games Software: $2.75 billion +15%
Video Game Accessories: $662 million +8%

Hardware Sales (in units sold)
Nintendo DS: 3.04 million
Wii: 2.15 million
Xbox 360: 1.44 million
PlayStation 2: 410,000
PlayStation Portable: 1.02 million
PlayStation 3: 726,000

Game Software (in units sold)
1) Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 1.46 million
2) Call of Duty: World at War (360, Activision) - 1.33 million
3) Wii Fit (Wii, Nintendo) - 999,000
4) Mario Kart Wii (Wii, Nintendo) - 979,000
5) Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii, Activision) - 850,000
6) Gears of War 2 (360, Microsoft) - 745,000
7) Left 4 Dead (360, Electronic Arts) - 629,000
8) Mario Kart DS (DS, Nintendo) - 540,000
9) Call of Duty: World at War (PS3, Activision) - 533,000
10) Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii, Nintendo) - 497,000