The NPD Group released today the games sales data for
December and 2007 in the US.
As you can imagine, the Nintendo Wii was the absolute champion of the month,
with 1.35 million Wiis sold in December. In fact, the little gaming platform
was crowned as last year’s best-seller with 6.29 million systems in 2007.
For Nintendo, the results are astonishing, especially
because the console sales were affected by the shortages all throughout the
entire year.
"With the Wii and DS we are providing innovative
experiences to core gaming fans, and we're bringing in new consumers,"
says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America president.
The December sales of Wii were closely followed by those of
Xbox 360. During December Microsoft sold 1.26 million units, but in terms of
the year sales it is lagging far behind Wii, with only 4.62 million units sold
during 2007.
As usual, Sony took the third spot and even in December,
Sony’s gaming platform was unable to reach the one million mark.
In December, PS3 sold only 797,600 units, being outsold
again by its older brother, PS2, with 1.1 million units of PlayStation 2.
Overall, during 2007 Sony’s PS3 sold a disappointing 2.56 million units, while
PS2 reached 3.97 million units.
In the gaming handhelds segment, Nintendo scored another
clear victory, by selling an amazing amount of 2.5 million units of its DS
handhelds in December, which is more than double compared to Sony’s PSP. (1.1
million units).
Overall, 2007 was a great year for gaming. The sales, fueled
by the release of the new consoles and games reached $4.82 billion in December
and nearly $18 billion for all of 2007, NPD said.
But as NPD warned, it is unlikely that the trend will remain
the same in 2008. "While I wouldn't count on similar growth in 2008, I
would expect to see ... more growth proportionately coming from software
sales," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a written commentary on the
data. "While we will continue to see strong hardware sales, particularly
if prices come down again, the spotlight now turns from hardware to
software."
