The Cut Scene - Video Game Blog by Variety

NPD April 2008: GTA IV huge (duh), Xbox 360 and PS3 lag (huh?)

No wonder Microsoft made a big deal yesterday of announcing that Xbox 360 is the first console to reach 10 million units in the U.S.

The folks there undoubtedly knew that today's NPD numbers would be pretty dismal. Not that they're any better for Sony. Neither console maker got any visible bump from the debut of "Grand Theft Auto IV" in April. Xbox 360 sales were down 28% from March to 188,000. PS3 sales fell 27% to 187,000.

Everyone expected that both console makers would benefit, of course. The theory is that lots of people haven't made the switch to PS3 or 360 yet, but would do so with a hugely popular game like "GTA IV" to motivate them. But while Rockstar sold 1.85 million units in the first five days on sale, almost everybody who bought one appears to already own a 360 or PS3.

By contrast, Wii sales were virtually flat at 714,000, as Nintendo moved from one big hit ("Super Smash Bros. Brawl") to another ("Mario Kart Wii"). Nothing can slow down that Wii mojo, it seems.

Of course it's possible that the early "GTA IV" buyers already have a 360 or PS3 but those who are buying it in May are more likely to be buying a console, but that's not what anybody expected. When "Halo 3" debuted in September with 12 days left on the NPD calendar, 360 sales nearly doubled from August.

It's bad news for Microsoft and Sony and calls into question whether they're already close to tapping out the audience of people willing to pay $350 or $400 for a console, no matter how good the games are.

Also worth noting are the videogames that launched in April and didn't even manage to sell the 141,000 units necessary to break into NPD's top 10. Those include THQ's ``Battle of the Bands,'' Midway's ``NBA Ballers: Chosen One,'' and D3's ``Dark Sector.''

I'll provide a link to my full Daily Variety story as soon as it's available (Hey, here it is!). Meanwhile, make what you will of the month's raw data:

Top 10 games                       Platform    Publisher    Units sold in April
1. Grand Theft Auto IV            360          Rockstar   1.85 million
2. Mario Kart Wii                    Wii          Nintendo   1.12 million
3. Grand Theft Auto IV            PS3         Rockstar    1 million
4. Wii Play                              Wii         Nintendo   360,000
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl     Wii          Nintendo   326,000
6. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue    PS3         Sony          224,000
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: DS           Nintendo    202,000
    Explorers of Darkness
8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: DS           Nintendo    202,000
    Explorers of Time
9. Guitar Hero III                    Wii         Activision   152,000
10. Call of Duty 4                    360         Activision   141,000

Hardware sales      April          Lifetime-to-date
Wii                        714,200       9.6 million
DS                         414,800       19.6 million
PSP                       192,700       11.4 million
Xbox 360               188,000       10.1 million
Playstation 3          187,100       4.3 M
Playstation 2          124,400      ?

                                 April 2008     Change from April 2007   Year-to-date     Change from 2007
Total Videogames        $1.23 B                  47%                         $5.47 B              31%
Hardware                    $426.2 M                26%                         $1.84 B              13%
Software                     $654.7 M                68%                         $2.88 B              46%
Accessories                 $154 M                   39%                         $750.6 M            29%                

(This post has been updated since I spent a little more time going through the data)

Grand Theft Auto IV sells $500 million-plus in its first week

Remember when I reported last month that, according to Take-Two Sources, "Grand Theft Auto IV" was on track to sell over $400 million at retail in its first week? Turns out my sources underestimated by around $100 million.

As I'm reporting in Variety this morning, Take-Two and Rockstar actually sold more than $500 million worth of "GTA IV" units, totalling more than 6 million units. That demolishes the $300 million-plus record that "Halo 3" set in September.

In fact, "GTA IV" broke that record on its first day, selling $310 million, or 3.6 million units on April 29. "Halo 3" sold $170 million on its first day in the U.S. (the game didn't quite have a simultaneous worldwide release)

And to the extent that it matters -- only a bit, in my book, given how different the economic model is -- it's bigger than the closest comparable box office record we could find: $404 million over six days for "Pirates of the Caribbean: at World's End."

Given that huge first week figure and that there's likely to be a surge in sales come the holidays  (at least amongst the more permissive or clueless parents out there), I'd say "GTA IV" has a very good shot at beating "San Andreas'" franchise record of 21.5 million units.

Strauss Zelnick and his team are sure to be happy, since this make's Electronic Arts' case that it can do an even better job with the "GTA" franchise than Take-Two a bit harder to argue. It'll be interesting to see today whether investors had sales this massive built into Take-Two's stock price or if its get a bump.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii have a huge month, "Lost: Via Domus" doesn't

Still have to sort through this all, but here's the raw data that NPD just provided for March video game sales in the U.S. First take: "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" had a HUGE month and Wii sales benefitted as well. PS3 finally got back ahead of the 360, but just barely. And both "Rainbow Six Vegas 2" and "Army of Two" had decent debuts.

Missing from the top 10 chart? Meaning they didn't debut too well: "Lost: Via Domus," "Condemned 2: Bloodshot," "Dark Sector."

                                               March 2007                  March 2008             Change

Total Video Games                    $1.1 B                          $1.7 B                     57%

Hardware                                  $377.9M                      $551.3M                  46%

Software                                   $579.1M                      $945.6M                  63%

Accessories                               $139.5M                      $220M                     58%

Hardware                       Units sold in March 2008            Units sold lifetime-to-date

PlayStation 3                          257,000                                    4.1M

PlayStation Portable                297,000                                   11.2M

Xbox 360                                262,000                                    9.9M

DS                                          697,000                                   19.2M

Wii                                         721,000                                   8.8M

PlayStation 2                          216,000                                     n/a

Top 10 video games                    Platform          Publisher                  Units sold in March

Super Smash Bros. Brawl              Wii                 Nintendo                    2.7M

Rainbow Six Vegas 2                    360                 Ubisoft                      752.3K

Army of Two                               360                 Electronic Arts            606.1K

Wii Play w/Remote                      Wii                 Nintendo                   409.8K

God of War: Chains of Olympus   PSP                 Sony                          340.5K

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII       PSP                 Square Enix                301.6K

Guitar Hero III                           Wii                  Activision                   264.1K

MLB 2K8                                     360                 Take 2                       237.1K

Call of Duty 4                             360                  Activision                   237K

Army of Two                              PS3                 Electronic Arts             224.9K

(Note: all figures are U.S. only. The lifetime-to-date figures are calculated by me with a bunch of annoying addition, since NPD doesn't provide it anymore.)

Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360 selling better than Playstation 3

Breaking news on Variety... I have learned from good sources who know what Take-Two is selling into retail that "Grand Theft Auto IV" is poised to gross over $400 million worldwide in its first week, beating the record set in September by "Halo 3," which grossed $300 million.

Also, while I'm always wary of such comparisons since spending on movies vs. games is so wildly different, it's worth noting that "GTA IV" will be right on par with the biggest movie debut of all time, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," which grossed $404 million worldwide its first day.

All the details are available right here on Variety.com

Also of note to Cut Scene readers is that I spoke to GameStop's senior VP or merchandising Bob McKenzie for the story. He's being a little more conservative with his estimates right now than the people I spoke to who know what Take-Two is selling to all retailers worldwide. Right now McKenzie thinks "GTA IV" will be a little smaller for his chain than "Halo 3" was.

On the other hand, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes told me that he expects "Grand Theft Auto IV" to "likely to do two times the volume that 'Halo 3' did" for his store. (More on Blockbuster's plans for "GTA IV" coming in another post soon.)

But I also asked McKenzie how the two different console versions of the game were looking for GaneStop and he shared this:

"Looking at the way pre-orders are trending, we're expecting it to be a little stronger on 360 than PS3," he told me, though he (unsurprisingly) wouldn't go into details on what the exact percentage would be.

So... we've had the poll on Joystiq, we have the GameFly rental data, we've had the debates about whether the highest install base of the 360 and the exclusive downloadable content would trump "GTA's" historical association with the Playstation console... and now we have our first solid data. It looks like Xbox 360 is going to beat PS3 for this game.

HOWEVER... it's worth noting that the 360 currently has a significant lead over the PS3. As of February, it was 9.6 million compared to 3.8 million in the U.S., according to NPD. So if the 360:PS3 ratio of "GTA IV" sales is closer than that, like say 60/40, that has to be considered something of a win for Sony, as it implies a higher tie ratio for their console and could potentially sell more PS3's than 360's. That would at least tighten the race between the two.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl sells 1.4 million in first week

Vidgame companies try to stay as tightlipped as they can about sales, except when they have a huge hit.

So it's no surprise we heard from Nintendo today that "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" has sold a boffo (as we say at Variety) 1.4 million units in just its first week on sale.

That's a truly astronomical number, especially considering that this is a game that is pretty much targeted at the hardcore gamer audience (who else gets excited by seeing Pikachu take on Sonic?) and it's launching well out of the holiday sales period, when most videogames are sold.

By comparison, "Super Mario Galaxy" sold 500,000 units in its first week in November.

Given all that, it's no surprise, if still impressive, that "Smash Bros. Brawl" is now the fastest selling game in the Nintendo's history in North America. It's well on track to outsell "Super Smash Bros. Melee," which eventually sold 7 million units and was the biggest game for GameCube.

It's worth keeping in mind, however, that this is huge but not quite HUGE. "Halo 3," for example, sold over 2.5 million units on its first day in the U.S. and over 5 million in its first week worldwide.

The month in sales data press release word counts

My story about February video game sales is now up here.

All three of the console manufacturers have in the past few months taken to issuing press releases shortly after NPD releases its data in order to spin things their way. It occurred to me while sorting through this month's data (available in raw form below) that there may just be a good connection between how long each company's press release is (i.e. how much spin they feel the need to provide) and how good their month was (i.e. how much the numbers speak for themselves). So here's a different kind of metric that didn't make my print story. Number of words in NPD sales data press release:

1. Microsoft: 678

2. Sony: 504

3. Nintendo: 201

February sales: PS3 beats 360 again, Devil May Cry 4 and Turok have decent debuts

I'm still working on my story based on the new NPD figures for February sales, but I figured no reason why Cut Scene readers shouldn't have access to the raw data immediately. So here's the top 10 games and console sales for February in the U.S.

It was  a pretty slow month, but still of note: "Call of Duty 4" stays on top: "Devily May Cry 4" has a solid debut and Disney's first M-rated game "Turok" has a decent bow; Playstation 3 once again outsells Xbox 360 (though Microsoft argues that the reason is it remains in a "supply constrained situation" since the holidays, a situation it says will be completely resolved in time for "Grand Theft Auto IV" next month).

		TOTAL U.S.
CONSOLE / TITLE	PUBLISHER	UNITS
360 CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE	ACTIVISION	296.2K
360 DEVIL MAY CRY 4	CAPCOM USA	295.2K
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE	NINTENDO OF AMERICA	289.7K
PS3 DEVIL MAY CRY 4	CAPCOM USA	233.5K
WII GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK	ACTIVISION	222.9K
NDS MARIO AND SONIC: OLYMPIC GAMES	SEGA OF AMERICA	205.6K
360 LOST ODYSSEY	MICROSOFT	203.6K
360 TUROK	TOUCHSTONE	197.7K
PS2 GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK	ACTIVISION	183.8K
360 ROCK BAND*	MTV GAMES/EA	161.8K

Hardware	Feb-08
PlayStation 2	351.8K
PlayStation 3	280.8K
PlayStation Portable	243.1K
Xbox 360	254.6K
Nintendo DS	587.6K
Wii	432K

Kane and Lynch sold 1.4 million units -- A point for EA's John Riccitiello

Buried in its restructuring statement was this bit of data from Sci/Eidos: Kane and Lynch sold 1.4 million units.

That's a solid, though far from spectacular, worldwide performance for a game that got very mixed reviews (though I personally thought it was great).

However Sci said it could have done much better. "We believe it could have sold more had we optimised the opportunity," it said in a statement.

Given Sci/Eidos' size, of course, it can only "optimize the opportunity" so far. Which was exactly one of EA CEO John Riccitiello's arguments last week as he explained why Take-Two would do better as part of his company."I wouldn't change a line of code in 'Bioshock,' and the same goes for 'GTA' and 'Max Payne,' " he said. "What we would do is sell more of them. Given our scale, we have substantial operations in places we don't believe they have ever visited. ... That allows us to sell more software and do so more efficiently."

Katzenberg: Videogame sales are hurting DVDs

Just finished covering earnings for DreamWorks Animation, but I got an interesting tidbit for Cut Scene readers as well.

We've all heard theories that the rapid growth of videogames is impacting consumption of other media, particularly movies and TV. There's little in the way of causal data, of course, only assumptions.

Turns out DreamWorks Animation CEO and Hollywood veteran Jeffey Katzenberg (co-founder of DreamWorks SKG, former head of Walt Disney Studios) agrees. On a conference call with analysts today, he blamed videogames in part for the soft performance of "Shrek the Third" on DVD compared to "Shrek 2":

Competition at retail from other sources such as videogames has had an impact on the overall homevideo market and on the performance of individual titles including "Shrek the Third."

Of course DreamWorks is well positioned to recoup some of those losses thanks to its deal with Activision (Blizzard). This year not only does it have games tied to the release of May's "Kung Fu Panda" and November's "Madagascar" sequel, but a second "Kung Fu Panda" game for the fall tied to that film's DVD release.

Rock Band has a great month, and maybe PS3 too

I wouldn't be surprised if Playstation 3 is in the headline for most stories about the January vidgame  sales data from NPD, but to me the biggest surprise was "Rock Band."

While most of the top 10 games chart was the same as we saw in December, "Rock Band" rocketed from nowhere (at least not in the top 10) to take the no. 4 slot with its Xbox 360 version. Aided by a high price compares to typical games, and even "Guitar Hero III" with its controller, "Rock Band" across all three of its platforms was the no. 1 revenue generating game for the month at $30 million.

"Rock Band" even sold better on the Xbox 360 than "Guitar Hero III," by a razor thin margin of 184,000 compared to 183,000. Of course, "Guitar Hero III" for Wii did even better, though, selling 240,000.

On the hardware side, the shocker is that PS3 outsold 360 for the first time and almost beat Nintendo's Wii (exact sales figures below). As I noted in my story for tomorrow's Daily Variety, there were likely several contributing factors, including:

-More PS3's in stock after the holidays than the competing systems, both of which outsold it all of last year.

-Warner Bros' decision to switch to Blu-ray, essentially ending the format war and putting PS3 in an excellent position as an inexpensive, multi-use Blu-ray player.

-Good old fashioned momentum for the PS3 thanks to the price cut and a growing library of solid games like "Uncharted" and "Ratchet and Clank: Future."

Of course, it's still worth noting that only one PS3 game was in the top 10 and for total system spend on games, hardware and accessories, Xbox 360 remains in the lead (360: $297 million; Wii: $244 million; PS3: $219 million). Clearly, 360 still has the hearts of the hard core gamers with the most cash to burn.

Here's the data so you can make sense of it yourself:

January 2008 hardware sales

Wii: 274,000

Playstation 3: 269,000

DS: 251,000

PSP: 230,000

Xbox 360: 230,000

January 2008 game sales

Call of Duty 4, Xbox 360: 331,000

Wii Play, Wii: 298,000

Guitar Hero III, Wii: 240,000

Rock Band, Xbox 360: 184,000

Guitar Hero III, Xbox 360: 183,000

Super Mario Galaxy, Wii: 172,000

Burnout Paradise, Xbox 360, 144,000

Call of Duty 4, PS3: 140,000

Mario Party, DS: 139,000

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, DS: 133,000