US Video Game Sales Charts for October 2008

Results for last month's video game hardware and software charts are in, giving us a better idea of how the holiday shopping season is shaping up for manufacturers. This month was full of surprises. First, without a surefire hit game in sight, the Nintendo Wii still managed to blow away the competition, racking up an impressive 803,000 sales. This was more that the total sales of every other home console, combined. Strong hardware performance was matched on the software side as well, with 487,000 copies of Wii Fit leaving shops last month. After having significantly slashed prices, Microsoft posted a solid month in October as well, with 371,000 Xbox 360 consoles sold in the United States. Xbox software releases dominated the top ten software chart as well, with Fable II and Fallout 3 both doing exceptionally well last month.

It was a weaker-than-expected month for Sony, with PS3 sales below 200,000 units. However, the PSP continued to post strong sales in the US market as gamers picked up the new PSP 3000 hardware bundles. On the software side, LittleBigPlanet failed to deliver big numbers in October, however this was undoubtedly caused by the unexpected delay of the game’s launch. We expect November results to be significantly better for Sony, at least on the software side.

Fears that a global economic recession would affect the video game industry appear to have been quashed. Hardware sales this year are up 18% over October 2007, suggesting that consumer demand for video game products continues to remain strong.

US Hardware Sales October 2008:

Nintendo Wii - 803K
Nintendo DS - 491K
Xbox 360 - 371K
PSP - 193K
PlayStation 3 - 190K
PlayStation 2 - 136K

US Software Sales Charts October 2008:

360 FABLE II MICROSOFT (CORP) Oct-08 1 790K
WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD NINTENDO OF AMERICA May-08 2 487K
360 FALLOUT 3 BETHESDA SOFTWORKS Oct-08 3 375K
WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL NINTENDO OF AMERICA Apr-08 4 290K
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA Feb-07 5 282K
360 SAINTS ROW 2 THQ (CORP) Oct-08 6 270K
PS3 SOCOM: U.S. NAVY SEALS CONFRONTATION SONY (CORP) Oct-08 7 231K
PS3 LITTLE BIG PLANET SONY (CORP) Oct-08 8 215K
360 NBA 2K9 TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE (CORP) Oct-08 9 202K
360 DEAD SPACE ELECTRONIC ARTS Oct-08 10 193K

[Source: NPD Group]