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'Anthem' was the top-selling game in the US this February
BioWare may be racing to fix Anthem after its bumpy launch, but it doesn't have to worry quite so much about its bottom line. NPD Group data shows that the shared-world shooter was the top-selling game in the US in February, and the second strongest game for 2019 up to that point (Kingdom Hearts III is the year's current champion). Moreover, this was the second best launch month for a BioWare game, falling only behind Mass Effect 3's debut in 2012.
October NPD: NBA 2K15, Smash Bros. 3DS lead in weak month for software sales [Update]
NPD results for the month of October place the 2K Sports behemoth NBA 2K15 in the lead, collectively across five platforms, with Super Smash Bros. 3DS in second – despite its single-platform status. Mario & Friends are still big moneymakers. Last month's powerhouse, Destiny, fell to fifth from first in October. New titles debuted strong: The Evil Within was the third best piece of tracked software for the month, followed by a fourth place appearance by Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. The latest Skylanders title, Skylanders: Trap Team, debuted at sixth causing The Sims 4, Disney Infinity 2.0 and Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls to fall from the top ten. Insomniac's Xbox One-exclusive Sunset Overdrive was the ninth best-selling title of the month, according to The NPD Group, but failed to appear on the group's combined platform, new physical software-only top ten list (it was also available in an Xbox One bundle). Sales across hardware, software and accessories "were essentially flat" compared to October 2013, The NPD Group's Liam Callahan said. Eighth-generation consoles made up 80 percent of dollar sales for the month – a 59 percent increase versus last year, a month before the Xbox One and PS4 launched – offsetting a 28 percent decline in software sales for October 2014 over the same reported period a year ago. [Update: Nintendo revealed that it sold over 485,000 copies of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS in North America in October, and has sold 1.2 million copies across digital and retail channels to date. The company additionally stated that Wii U hardware sales have seen a 47 percent jump in the first 10 months of 2014, compared to the same period in 2013.]
Big iPhone 6 launch leads to huge sales of accessories
Whenever Apple launches a new iPhone or iPad, financial and marketing analysis firms are always quick to point out just how many devices were sold in a short amount of time, and what the probable positive impact is to the company's bottom line. Well, new devices like the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus also make life great for other manufacturers, particularly those who make accessories. The NPD Group Weekly Tracking Service showed that for the two weeks following the release of the new iPhones, accessories accounted for a whopping US$249 million in sales. By comparison, last year's release of the iPhone 5s and 5c only accounted for $195 million in the two weeks following the launch. That was only a 17 percent jump over the two weeks preceding the introduction of last year's phones, compared with a 43 percent increase for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The fact that the two new phones have completely new form factors accounted for a jump of 78 percent in case revenue after the launch, while screen protector revenue leaped 120 percent. Other accessory categories, like Bluetooth speakers and power products, showed only modest gains as they can usually be used with regardless of the new phone form factor.
Macs account for more than 1/4 of all back-to-school PC sales
Numbers from the NPD Group's Weekly Tracking Service show that Macs reached an all-time high percentage of back-to-school PC sales this year, with 26.8 percent of all personal computers sold in the U.S. between Independence Day and Labor Day coming from the Cupertino company. The numbers, via AppleInsider, show that devices running Google's Chrome OS also showed impressive sales growth. While Chromebooks made up only about 0.2 percent of back-to-school PC sales in 2012, the low-cost computers pulled in 4.5 percent this year. With Macs and Chrome OS devices pulling in more market share, something has to be giving up that share - and that something is Windows OS. From 75.2 percent of all devices sold in 2012's back-to-school season, Windows OS PCs made up 68.4 percent of the total in 2014. As AppleInsider notes, most of the non-Apple sales volume was made up of ultra-low-cost machines. Apple's least expensive Mac laptop is the $899 MacBook Air, while many of the Chromebooks are selling for less than $300 and sales of sub-$300 Windows-based computers rose 37 percent. It would appear that a growing number of parents are opting to spend more for a device that has high quality and will last longer, than for a cheap "throwaway" PC or Chromebook.
August NPD: Madden 15, PS4 score top honors
Madden NFL 15 was the software leader in August, surprising a record-breaking no one. According to the NPD results, Madden's sophomore effort on the latest batch of consoles faired better on the PS4 versus all other platforms. The latest console release of Diablo 3 landed second on the new physical retail sales list, with Minecraft for Xbox 360 and PS3 rounding out the third spot. Compared to the same reported period last year, however, software sales of new games for the month were on the decline due to fewer big ticket launches. In August 2013, a handful of anticipated titles arrived in stores and online, including Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Saints Row IV and Disney Infinity. Overall, new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories "increased by 8 percent in August 2014 over August 2013 and followed a similar pattern of prior months with explosive hardware growth driven by eighth generation consoles offsetting declines in software," NPD analyst Liam Callahan said. "Deep declines in seventh generation software [X360, PS3, Wii] of 57 percent were not offset by growth in eighth generation software, leading to a net decrease of console software sales of $47 million," he added. Hardware sales grew over the same reported period last year "by an over 200 percent increase in console hardware sales" thanks to the Xbox One, PS4 and Wii U. According to a statement from Sony, "PlayStation 4 was [number one] in hardware sales for the eighth consecutive month and remains the cumulative leader for next generation game consoles."
Analysts: 75 percent of US core gamers prefer physical copies
According to sales and marketing analyst NPD Group, 75 percent of American core gamers prefer physical game copies to digital distribution. The firm surveyed 7,900 core gamers to arrive at its conclusion. It defines "core gamer" as someone who plays at least five hours worth of action, adventure, fighting, flight, MMO, racing, RTS, RPG, shooter, or sports games per week on PCs, Microsoft or Sony consoles, or Macs. The firm concludes that 34 million US gamers fall under its core definition, with the average core gamer playing 22 hours per week. NPD's report also claims that while the overwhelming majority of its survey participants favor physical game copies, digital distribution is up five percent year-over-year.
January NPD: PS4 leads hardware, Xbox platforms sell most games
The NPD Group's numbers for January are in and survey says: PS4 is on top in overall hardware sales, with the Xbox One right behind. Microsoft's take on the numbers focuses on games, saying the Xbox led "US game sales" in January. Combining all Xbox platforms, Microsoft states it made up for 47 percent of the month's software market share, based on data provided by the NPD Group. Xbox Corporate VP of Marketing, Strategy and Business, Yusuf Mehdi, also revealed that over 685 million speech commands have been used to navigate Xbox One, "including 20 million commands of 'Xbox, Record That' alone." Yup, they're counting. In a statement obtained by VentureBeat, demand for the PS4 remains high as it retained the number one spot, "nearly doubling the nearest next-gen competitor," said Sony spokesperson Guy Longworth. Nintendo software saw a slight bump, with 3DS up 6 percent and Wii U up 26 percent (both numbers normalized). Call of Duty: Ghosts led the month in sales with NBA 2K14 and Battlefield 4 behind them. Top ten new, physical retail sales can be found after the break.
NPD: premium TV networks losing subscribers as streaming services continue to grow
Don't color us surprised by The NPD Group's latest report, one that highlights the decline in subscriptions for paid TV networks over the last couple of years in the US. According to the research, there was a six percent overall drop in the amount of subscribers to channels like HBO and Showtime in the past two years; conversely, video streaming services had a four percent growth in that same period of time. As of August 2013, NPD says 32 percent of American households were subscribed to a premium TV network, while 27 percent held an on-demand streaming subscription. Not surprisingly, the findings note that Netflix is leading the way among US folks, although Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime aren't far behind and have experienced "the biggest growth benefits in the category." A sign o' the times indeed -- and with companies like Netflix producing great original content, these numbers will likely keep getting better for members of the streaming pack. Update: As reported by The Wrap, NPD has pulled the original report from its website, and is reviewing its data, after HBO, Showtime and Starz all claimed their numbers show recent growth instead of decline.
NPD: Video game spending up 17% in Q3 (thanks, GTA 5!)
The NPD Group announced today that consumers spent $3.45 billion on video game content during the third quarter (July through September) of 2013 in the United States – a 17 percent increase over the same period last year. Analyst Liam Callahan attributes the growth to the release of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5, which shipped a total of 29 million copies to retail as of last month. Americans spent $1.30 billion on brand-new, boxed retail games over the past quarter. "Trends during the third quarter were the best that we have observed since the second quarter of 2011, driven by growth across both the physical and digital sides of the video game industry," said Callahan. "The launch of Grand Theft Auto 5 helped propel the new physical sales by twenty percent and continued growth of console digital full games as well as downloadable add-on content is an indication of the renewed health of the industry." NPD added that digital game and downloadable content spending grew by 35 percent year-on-year, totaling $1.72 billion in Q3 2013. Used and rental sales reached $436 million over the last quarter.
October NPD: Xbox 360 reclaims the console throne, software sales up
Physical video game software sales in the U.S. were up 12 percent in October to $482.5 million, compared with the same period in 2012, NPD reports. This marks the third month in a row that software sales have been up year-over-year. Games leading the sales charge include Grand Theft Auto 5, which clung to its top spot, and Pokemon X and Y, which took No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Batman: Arkham Origins and Assassins' Creed 4: Black Flag both launched late in October but claimed spots 5 and 6. Peep the full list after the break. Gaming hardware sales dropped 8 percent year-over-year to $171.7 million, with the 3DS leading the pack for the sixth month straight. The Xbox 360 was the No. 1 console again in October, after the PS3 ruined its streak in September. Sales of gaming accessories rose 1 percent last month, due to an increase of more than 70 percent in the Interactive Gaming Toys department – meaning Skylanders and Disney Infinity pieces – NPD analyst Liam Callahan says. Next month will be a very different NPD, with the launch of the PS4 tomorrow and the Xbox One next week. Check out our latest PS4 launch coverage (now with Vines!) right here.
September NPD: Grand Theft Auto 5 sales boost industry [Update]
Good news, everyone! The NPD Group reports that the video game industry's performance in the physical retail sector was up by 27 percent year-over-year for the month of September: $1.07 billion this year versus $848 million last year. Predictably, the majority of that boosted income came from the industry's software segment, also known as "where all that Grand Theft Auto 5 money lives." New physical sales for console and portable software during September totaled at $754.3 million, a 52 percent increase over the $497.5 million earned during the same period last year. GTA 5 understandably tops the list of September's 10 best-selling games, followed by Madden NFL 25 and NBA 2k14. Hardware sales for the period brought in $183.2 million, which is 13 percent fewer millions than were earned in September of 2012. The Nintendo 3DS spent its fifth month as the best-selling thing in the segment, while Wii U sales increased "more than 200 percent" over August, though Nintendo abstained from providing specific numbers as to how many Wii U boxes that works out to. Meanwhile, the PlayStation 3 broke the Xbox 360's long-running streak and was the best-selling console for the period, largely thanks to the system's available Grand Theft Auto 5 bundle, according to NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan. The Accessories segment, which contains giftcards, digital currency vouchers, Skylanders/Disney Infinity figures and other various sundries, was essentially flat year-over-year, experiencing just a 2 percent increase in sales at $142.3 million. Update: Microsoft has chimed in, noting that it reached 80 million sales to retailers of Xbox 360 worldwide in September, with console sales hitting $401.2 million. Unable to say the Xbox 360 was the No. 1-selling console last month, Microsoft instead says that it remains the top console in the US in 2013. Clever phrasing, team.
NPD: 'Almost' as many kids gaming on mobiles as consoles, computers
Information broker The NPD Group's "Kids and Gaming 2013" report found that children aged 12 to 17 are spending seven hours per week on mobile gaming, up from five hours per week in 2011. The report studied the gaming habits of children aged 2 to 17. While more children still use computers and consoles for gaming, the report notes there are now "almost" as many kids playing on mobile devices as there are on the more prominent platforms. Liam Callahan, an industry analyst with The NPD Group, said in the report that "kids are engaged as less expensive tablets and an increasing amount of hand-me-down phones create greater accessibility to these platforms than before." The report's findings were gathered online from a sample of female adults, aged 21 to 60, that are part of NPD's online panel and house children between the age of 2 to 17. The report is based off the answers of 3,842 children and, in the case of younger children, answers provided by adults on their behalf. [Image credit: Flickr user 'Nearsoft']
July NPD: NCAA Football and Minecraft lead software, 3DS still on top
The NPD Group has released its report on sales in the physical retail channel of the games industry during the month of July, with both predictable and surprising results. On the predictable side of things, all three segments (Hardware, Software and Accessories) continued their downward year-over-year decline, with total Hardware sales suffering a 34-percent decrease: $99.4 million this year as compared with $150.9 million over the same period in 2012. Despite this industry-wide decline, Nintendo's 3DS saw a 14 percent year-over-year increase in sales as it held its spot as the best-selling piece of hardware for a third month in a row. This is the first time a handheld has topped the market for such a lengthy period since the Nintendo DS' three month streak in the fall/winter of 2010, according to NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 remained the best-selling home console for the thirty-first month in a row. As per usual, the Accessories segment suffered the least amount of market fluctuation, experiencing only a three percent year-over-year loss and bringing in $133.4 million in sales. Also maintaining the status quo, this segment's stability continues to be attributed to steady sales of digital currency and subscription giftcards.
NPD forms 9-publisher panel to gather, report digital storefront data
The NPD Group, responsible for compiling and releasing monthly sales data of the gaming industry in North America, is attempting to address a hole in its retail-skewed data: digital point-of-sale information. NPD plans to change its methods to include these digital POS figures, and change them "quickly," Games President David McQuillan tells Games Industry. McQuillan wants to prepare for the new consoles hitting shelves this holiday. "We fully realize that the market needs the same level of information for the digital categories as exists for the physical business today: SKU-level POS," he says. "The progress on that effort up until recently has been slow and frustrating at times, but today I am very happy to share that the pace of progress has changed recently. NPD has formed a leader panel to track digital POS sales of full game and add-on content downloads." The leader panel includes nine "leading games publishers," and it will first focus on full-game downloads and DLC for PC, consoles and mobile devices. The program is in beta now, and NPD is partnering with research company EEDAR to track digital POS numbers worldwide –not only in North America as its current system does. Eventually the digital results will make their way into NPD's monthly reports, but there's no word on when that will happen. "Once we move past the beta or proof of concept phase, subscribers will have access to the full data set, which you would expect of any service," McQuillan says. "The level of information to be shared publicly has not been determined at this time." Since 2010, NPD has tracked downloads of full games and add-on content, subscriptions, mobile games and social games, but it leaves out numbers from digital stores such as Steam, Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network in its monthly reports. The importance of these marketplaces continues to grow over the years, and last month the ESA called the NPD reports a "disservice to the truth." In 2011, EA called NPD's data "a misrepresentation of the entire industry."
NPD: More people spending more time gaming online
It may sound like a foregone conclusion, but the NPD Group has proven (with maths) that more people are spending more time playing video games online, at least compared to last year. The study, titled "Online Gaming 2013," poled 8,867 folks above the age of two and found that 72 percent of game-playing individuals played online – a five percent increase over 2012. The average amount of time spent gaming online per week also increased by six percent, though the NPD Group did not disclose a specific figure for that statistic. PCs had the largest majority of online users at 68 percent – meanwhile, mobile online gaming saw a year-over-year increase of 12 percent. The NPD Group did not list any reasons for the overall year-over-year increase in online gaming, but we're going to go out on a limb and guess that, by and large, it's because the world is mostly a terrible place full of awful people that should be avoided at all costs. Either that, or Steam sales.
NPD Group: iTunes owns the internet video market
We'll find out how Apple's financial fortunes are faring a bit later this afternoon, but for now, there's a report out of The NPD Group showing that Apple now dominates home digital video the way it does the digital music market. The numbers are staggering: Apple's iTunes Store had a 67 percent share of electronic sell-through (EST) for television shows in 2012. How big is that? The nearest competitor was Xbox Video with a 14 percent share of EST. The stats were also in favor of Apple for feature-length movie downloads, with the company pulling in a 65 percent share of EST. Xbox Video and Amazon Instant video weren't even close in the competition, each having a 10 percent share. While Apple's lead wasn't as incredible in the internet video-on-demand sector, iTunes still led the way with 45 percent of the market. Despite Amazon Instant Video's popularity, it has less than half of the movie rental traffic of Apple at just 18 percent. Russ Crupnick, senior VP of industry analysis at NPD, believes that Apple's early moves in the market allowed the company to dominate the digital sales and rental markets for movies and that customer satisfaction is what's keeping the numbers high. Crupnick notes, "We've seen big-name entertainment retailers lose share, and even close, as their customer satisfaction metrics faded; however, that's clearly not the case with iTunes. Customers are quite happy with the store."
IDC: Mac shipments down. Gartner: Mac shipments up.
It must be tough to be a market research firm these days. IDC released preliminary information of PC shipments for the first calendar quarter of 2013 today, showing the market to be dismal with an overall decline in PC shipments of almost 13 percent in the US year-over-year and Mac shipments apparently down 7.5 percent in the same period. On the other hand, Gartner's figures -- also released today -- show an 9.6 percent year-over-year decline in the US PC market, and shipments of Macs actually growing 7.4 percent in the same period. With Apple's fiscal second quarter earnings report coming up in less than two weeks, the conflicting numbers are sure to make financial analysts reach for the bottle of Jim Beam hidden in a desk drawer. As if the numbers from IDC and Gartner weren't perplexing enough, 9to5Mac points out that NPD Group's numbers show sales (not shipments) of Macs jumping a whopping 14 percent. Who's right? We'll all have to wait until the afternoon of April 23 to see the actual numbers from Apple. If history repeats itself once again, we're sure to see stellar numbers from Apple for most product lines, followed by a precipitous drop in AAPL's share price. You can join us for all the fun during our regular earnings call liveblog at 5 PM ET on April 23, 2013.
NPD: Digital game sales growing year-over-year 33 percent
Digital games and downloadable content sales are growing at a rate of 33 percent year over year in the US and Europe, according to data presented by NPD, iResearch and Digi-Capital analysts at GDC. The speakers at the digital games sales talk noted that sales in China are expected to grow over 10 percent every year for the next three years.According to GamesIndustry International, NPD analyst Liam Callahan told attendees that digital game content sales in 2012 reached $5.9 billion in the United States. Sales in the UK reached $1.7 billion, followed by Germany with $1.4 billion and France with $1 billion. Callahan also said that digital content composes 40 percent of the United States' total spend on games, an increase from 28 percent in 2010.NPD estimated that 48 percent ($7.1 billion) of the $14.8 billion spent on games in the US in 2012 came from purchases on brand new games at retail. The other 51 percent was from digital games and downloadable content ($2.22 billion), mobile game sales ($2.11 billion), used game sales ($1.59 billion), subscriptions ($1.05 billion), social network gaming ($544 million) and rentals ($198 million). The NPD also reported a drop in used game sales from 2011 by 17.1 percent.
NPD: Apple accounted for 1/5th of all US consumer tech revenue last year
The 2012 superlatives for Apple just keep rolling in. NPD Group released a report today showing an overall decline in US sales of consumer technology for the year, but that Apple's share of sales (based on revenue) rose from 17.3 percent in 2011 to 19.9 percent in 2012. Apple's sales share was over 10 percent higher than number two brand Samsung at 9.3 percent. HP, Sony and Dell -- taken together -- had less of a share (15.6 percent) of US consumer technology sales than Apple alone. NPD's data also show several ominous trends for all companies in the consumer technology sector. Revenues from sales of notebook computers were down 9 percent from 2011, while desktops showed a 11 percent drop year over year. Smartphone revenues grew at a slightly slower rate -- 25 percent -- in 2012 than in 2011 (28 percent), and growth in the tablet market slowed dramatically as well. 2011 was a banner year for growth of the tablet market, with a growth in revenue of 135 percent. Last year's numbers showed a drop to "only" a 42 percent growth rate. Whether that trend will affect Apple's earnings in 2013 is unknown, making growth in offshore markets like China and India all that much more important to the company. [via AppleInsider]
Daily Update for January 4, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
