The Stupid Gamer

Activision has announced that sales for Call of Duty 4 has surpassed 10 million copies. They didn’t give a breakdown in numbers, but the 360 version is safely leading the pack.

Well, maybe it would be a good idea to just let Infinity Ward handle all future Call of Duty games, don’t you think? I mean, Call of Duty 3 and Big Red One aren’t horrible, but they’re nowhere near as good as 1, 2, or 4. Infinity Ward did 1, 2, and 4, Activision B teams handled the others.

Seriously though, congratulations to Infinity Ward and everybody else involved in Call of Duty 4. It’s an amazing game and I hope it continues to sell like crazy.

So April was a month everybody was watching to see how GTA IV would affect the sales landscape. Could the PS3 version move new hardware? Could GTA, a traditionally strong Sony fan title, sell more on the PS3 than the 360? Could the game propel either platform ahead of the Wii for the month? Well, here are the numbers, they clear things up quite easily.

Hardware

Nintendo Wii - 714,200
Nintendo DS - 414,800
Sony PSP - 192,000
Xbox 360 - 188,000
PlayStation 3 - 187,100
PlayStation 2 - 124,400

Software Top Ten

360 - Grand Theft Auto IV 1,850,000
Wii - Mario Kart w/ wheel 1,120,000
PS3 - Grand Theft Auto IV 1,000,000
Wii - Wii Play 360,000
Wii - Super Smash Bros. Brawl 326,000
PS3 - Gran Turismo 5: Prologue 224,000
NDS - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness 202,000
NDS - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time 202,000
Wii - Guitar Hero III 152,000
360 - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 141,000

Breakdown: Wii (4), DS (2), 360 (2), PS3 (2)

I’m still confused by a few things here. I don’t understand how the PSP can be consistently beating out the 360 and PS3, yet its games aren’t charting. It seems that there are a lot of people still picking up PSPs, but that they’re either very stingy with their software money or they’re just flat out using the machine for other purposes. It’s no surprise that GTA IV came in first this month, but has to be a bit shocking that Mario Kart managed to beat out the PS3 version of GTA. It’s pretty crazy how Guitar Hero III for the Wii and Call of Duty 4 for the 360 just refuse to let go of a spot in the top ten.

So, what effect did GTA IV have? Basically none. It didn’t move new units, and it didn’t slow down the Wii or DS. Yes, it sold a lot of copies, but it seems that rather than move new hardware, it just became the bright spot in the software charts. I think both Sony and Microsoft were expecting much more of a bump.

Nintendo’s latest earnings report showcased some insane sales numbers and some pretty lofty sales expectations for the DS and Wii. The numbers also provided lifetime sales for the GBA and GameCube. While there are still a few Cubes and GBAs getting sold, the numbers are so insignificant that we can effectively take these numbers as their final sales totals. Here are the numbers pulled from the report:

GameBoy Advance (all versions): 81,060,000
North America: 41,640,000
Japan: 16,880,000
Other: 22,530,000

GameCube: 21,740,000
North America: 12,940,000
Japan: 4,040,000
Other: 4,770,000

Current hardware (lifetime to date):
Nintendo DS: 70,600,000
North America: 22,390,000
Japan: 22,380,000
Other: 25,820,000

Nintendo Wii: 24,450,000
North America: 10,610,000
Japan: 5,900,000
Other: 7,940,000

Other Fun Numbers:
DS has 57 million-selling games (LTD)
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl: 14.77 million sold
Brain Age 1 and 2 (combined): 23.81 million sold
Smash Bros Brawl: 4.85 million as of March 31
The Wii has 26 million-selling games.

Sales Forecast For Next Fiscal Year:
Nintendo Wii hardware: 25 million sold worldwide
Nintendo DS hardware: 28 million sold worldwide
Nintendo Wii Software: 177 million sold
DS software: 187 million sold

So in less than half the time, the Wii has already surpassed GameCube (and Xbox) lifetime sales. That’s pretty impressive and a big turnaround for Nintendo who has struggled the past two generations. The DS is just crazy. There’s not a lot that needs to be said there, because the monstrous numbers speak for themselves. It’s easily going to fly past the GBA lifetime sales,especially if the DS is around for as long before a true successor hits.

Each month when the new sales figures come out fans of the “losing” console freak out. They lose their sense of reality and just start spamming message forums with damage control. This month Sony fans are in backpedal mode, and here are a few choice cuts. I plan on doing this each month, we’ll see if I can keep up the desire to do so. I’ve basically gone to a couple of forums and pulled random quotes that I felt were dumb. I’ve then added a response of my own that is debatable in its humor value. For the most part, the original comments speak for themselves.

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Damn close between 360 and ps3.

also, holy sh** at psp games in the top 10, and TWO OF THEM!

Snarky Response: Yes, ignore that the Wii was even on the charts. It will go away. The PSP taking 1/5th of the top ten is the only remarkable occurence of the month.

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(Quoted from another post) - “Damn, Guitar Hero III on the Wii just keeps trucking!”

good…maybe it will force nintendo to add a friggen harddrive

Snarky Response: Right, because GOOD sales typically force companies to change their strategies. Oh wait.

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Holy crap, are people on Wii just playing Smash and Guitar Hero?

Snarky Response: Yes, and PS3 owners are only playing Army of Two. The top 10 doesn’t account for all game sales, champ.

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(Quoted from another post) - “I wonder why the high def consoles dropped..kind of discouraging.”

state of economy?

Snarky Response: It must be! That’s why March was the biggest non-holiday month in the history of gaming (in regards to overall sales). This, my friends, is called grasping at straws.

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I think millions of hardcore gamers are going to cry out in pain the day WiiFit is released.

Snarky Response: Probably for two reasons this guy is correct. First, because it will be the first time they’ve ever done a push up, and secondly, once Wii Fit releases secret police forces will remove all “traditional” games from shelves and immediately shut down the production of any non-Wii waggle heavy title.

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The interesting thing about the Wii is that Smash Bro probably contributed very little to that number. Most of that are driven by Wii Sports.

Snarky Response: Yeah, I can’t see how a game moving 2.7 million copies could have an impact on sales at all.

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Are we going to consider the PS3 and 360 a tie since it is only 5k discrepancy? Since NPD does not get full report from all vedors, ie Toys R US, IE Amazon.

Snarky Response: Faulty logic. WOuldn’t you have to increase the 360 and Wii numbers as well? Oh wait, we only play this card when our system of choice is behind. I keep forgetting that.

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Wasn’t Easter in march? Isn’t that considered a mini Christmas? Could that explain the huge sales number of the Wii?

Snarky Response: Lucky for Nintendo Miyamoto is the Easter Bunny and he doesn’t support non-Nintendo products. Look, I have proof!

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I love Metal Gear 4. I think it is the best online experience of any game ever. Same with the single player. Let me swim in the awesome Kojima.

Snarky Response: Nice time to talk about the sheer awesomeness of an unreleased game, huh? Hey buddy, that deflection tactic didn’t help sales any.

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I don’t get why so many say that the wii has won this generation. Sure the hardware sales are unprecedented for the wii but the hardware only exists to play the GAMES. Software is why we’re all here in the first place and software is where the money is made in this industry. The 360 is kicking huge amounts of ass when it comes to software sales and is the rightful winner of this generation at this point!

Snarky Response: Again, top 10 sales aren’t all the sales. The Wii, like the DS, has a massive userbase and their sales are spread out across a large library. Wii software sales have actually been higher than 360 sales 3 out of the past 4 months (overall).

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Guys debating Wii vs 360/Ps3 must be the same guys that like to debate ice cream flavors.

“Chocolate > strawberry, and it sells the most too, so there should be only chocolate.”

“But i want more than chocolate. I actually like to mix Chocolate with strawberry flavor”

“F*** you.”

…. Seriously people. Give it a rest.

Snarky Response: I can’t believe he took the time to come up with this analogy. Analogies are dumber than a gorilla in a snowstorm. I’d never use one.

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And who cares how well Wii sold? It’s not even competing with PS3 and 360 IMO.

Snarky Response: Adding “IMO” to the end of a post doesn’t give you immunity. What a stupid post. So can Pepsi just claim that they’re number one because they don’t consider Coke a competitor? If so, they should IMO.

Note: IMO is lazy forum speak for “in my opinion”. It’s often used when somebody knows they’re saying something stupid and they don’t want to take heat for it because they can’t back up their statement with any basis in reality.

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Last month was an insane month for sales. Software totals nearly generated $1 billion in sales. That figure is astronomically high, especially for March. The Wii and DS came out with monstrous totals this month, and the 360 regained a leadership position over the PS3, something that hadn’t been happening in recent months. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the big winner this month with 2.7 million sold in North America alone. Here are the numbers:

Hardware
Nintendo Wii 721,000
Nintendo DS 698,000
Sony PSP 297,000
Xbox 360 262,000
PlayStation 3 257,000
PlayStation 2 216,000

Software Top 10

WII Super Smash Bros.: Brawl - 2,700,000
360 Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 - 752,300
360 Army of Two - 606,100
WII Wii Play - 409,800
PSP God of War: Chains of Olympus - 340,500
PSP Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - 301,600
WII Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - 264,100
360 MLB 2k8 - 237,100
360 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 237,000
PS3 Army of Two - 224,900

Some people love them, others simply tolerate them…it’s the NPDs. This month things are looking pretty similar to what happened last month, except for the PSP has fallen back a bit. Microsoft needs to get rid of the Arcade pack (new ‘tard pack?) and just get the version of the system out there that everybody wants (the Pro). Until they do that, they’re going to continue to limp in sales, because nobody is eager to pick up the lesser version of the 360 at this point. Software looked great on the 360, as always. Call of Duty 4 is just an absolute beats, kicking out almost another 300,000. After this long, it’s great to see that game continue to steamroll the charts. Anyway, here are the numbers:

Hardware
Nintendo DS - 587,600
Nintendo Wii - 432,000
PlayStation 2 - 351,800
PlayStation 3 - 280,800
Xbox 360 - 254,600
Sony PSP - 243,100

Top 10 Software
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) - 296,200
Devil May Cry 4 (360) - 295,200
Wii Play (Wii) - 289,700
Devil May Cry 4 (PS3) - 233,500
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) - 222,900
Mario and Sonic: Olympic Games (DS) - 205,600
Lost Odyssey (360) - 203,600
Turok (360) - 197,700
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) - 183,800
Rock Band (360) - 161,800

So here are the top selling games for each platform so far this generation in Japan. Thanks to NeoGAF for helping to pull the numbers together in one spot and offer them up in English. Also, you can see how much each system has sold to date.

Nintendo Wii - 5,366,963 systems sold
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1. Wii Sports - Nintendo - 2,750,365
2. Wii Play - Nintendo - 2,198,039
3. Wii Fit - Nintendo - 1,450,509
4. Super Smash Brothers Brawl - Nintendo - 1,247,632
5. Mario Party 8 - Nintendo - 1,181,118
6. Super Mario Galaxy - Nintendo - 872,463
7. Wario Ware: Smooth Moves Wii - Nintendo - 568,623
8. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Nintendo - 552,476
9. Mario & Sonic at Olympics - Nintendo - 510,465
10. Super Paper Mario - Nintendo - 505,491

PlayStation 3 - 1,914,659 systems sold
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1. Everybody’s Golf 5 - SCEJ - 384,882
2. Shin Sangoku Musou - Koei - 356,266
3. Gundam Musou - Koei - 312,674
4. Winning Eleven 2008 - Konami - 275,069
5. Devil May Cry 4 - Capcom - 266,293
6. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (BR version) - SCEJ - 202,131
7. Ridge Racer 7 - Bandai Namco - 149,648
8. Gundam: Target in Sight - Bandai Namco - 146,199
9. Resistance - SCEJ - 136,492
10. BladeStorm: The Hundred Years War - Koei - 118,079

Xbox360 - 587,012 systems sold
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1. Blue Dragon - MS - 203,740
2. Dead or Alive 4 - Tecmo - 108,618
3. Lost Odyssey - MS - 104,417
4. Ace Combat 6 - Bandai Namco - 94,057
5. Halo 3 - MS - 83,696
6. Ridge Racer 6 - Bandai Namco - 73,501
7. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Spike - 72,274
8. Trusty Bell - Bandai Namco - 70,435
9. Gears of War - MS - 68,270
10. Dead Rising - Capcom - 68,078

As expected, the Wii is crushing the PS3 and 360, but the software numbers are insane. You can take the top selling title for the PS3 or the 360 and they wouldn’t even fall in the Wii’s top 10. It should be a little worrisome however that 3rd parties have basically no representation in the Wii charts. We keep hearing that certain 3rd party titles are selling well (especially Capcom’s offerings), but they can’t seem to measure up to Nintendo’s own offerings in Japan.

No, not Mario games plus Sonic games, but rather Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games has sold over 5 million copies to date. Between the DS and Wii versions, this game is blowing up in every territory, and that’s before the expected sales bump that the game will receive once the Beijing Olympic games roll around. By most accounts the game was merely average (I never tried it), but this is definitely a sign that Mario and Sonic still have some serious draw.

So does this mean that we’ll be seeing more Mario and Sonic crossover titles? Maybe. Sonic is already in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to see Nintendo and Sega getting the characters together again in some sort of racer or other type of party game. With the sales that this game has received, you can count on seeing Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games two years from now.

Here are the hardware sales for December 2007. Sony’s PR overstated their numbers by more than a quarter million. Remember folks, when Sony gives numbers, they pass their shipped units off as sales. Also, it looks like Nintendo pretty much sold their full production capacity with the Wii, so again we have no idea what it could have sold if supply hadn’t been so tight. The DS continues to just steamroll the competition, however.

Hardware Sales

PlayStation 2 - 1,100,000
PlayStation 3 - 797,600
Sony PSP - 1,060,000
Xbox 360 - 1,260,000
Nintendo Wii - 1,350,000
Nintendo DS - 2,470,000

Software Sales Top Ten

360 CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE - 1.47 million
WII SUPER MARIO GALAXY - 1.40 million
PS2 GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK - 1.25 million
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE - 1.08 million
360 ASSASSIN’S CREED - 893,000
360 HALO 3 - 742,700
NDS BRAIN AGE 2 - 659,500
PS2 MADDEN NFL 08 - 655,200
360 GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK - 624,600
WII MARIO AND SONIC: OLYMPIC GAMES - 613,000

The PS3 is still struggling mightily with software sales, but it’s surprising to only see one DS game in the top ten. As usual, the 360 is the software champion.

For more breakdown of the NPD, listen to the upcoming Stupid Gamer Podcast.

I’ve pretty much stopped posting posting Japanese sales numbers because they were more redundant than, gee, I can’t come up with a good analogy here, but they were really redundant all the same. So anyway, I stopped posting them, but what’s the harm in taking a peek now and then, especially when the numbers are as crazy as they were for the past week? Check this out (thanks to Cheesemeister over at NeoGAF for the image, which you can click to enlarge to full resolution):

Looking at the charts, Nintendo has the entire top 10, 14 of the top 15, and 23 out of the top 30 overall. That’s pretty crazy, especially given that Sony’s big hitter, Grand Turismo 5: Prologue was released on the PS3 during this time frame.

Some things worth noting is that Super Mario Galaxy is over 800,000 in Japan and should hit 1 million soon. By next week Mario Party DS will surpass 1.5 million, Wii Sports is over 2.6 million, Wii Fit is over 1 million, Wii Play is over 2 million, Mario Party 8 is over 1 million, and Mario and Sonic are just a shade under 500,000.