Top Selling Games of February

While Wii Fit moved 644,000 units in February, it was Street Fighter IV the truly topped the retail in North America for the month, according to retail sales data from NPD Group. Combined sales of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Capcom’s latest beat ‘em up were 849,000 units during the month beating out everything else in the month’s top ten. Also having a good showing in February was SCEA’s Killzone 2 for the PS3, Wii Play and Call of Duty World at War. Despite some stand outs, Nintendo continued to dominate most of the top ten with various first and third-party DS and Wii titles. Here’s the list:

Top 10 Games, February 2009

1. Wii Fit w/ Balance Board - (Wii) 644,000 Units
2. Street Fighter IV - (Xbox 360) 446,000 Units
3. Street Fighter IV - (PS3) 403,000 Units
4. Wii Play w/ Remote - (Wii) 386,000 Units
5. Killzone 2 - (PS3) 323,000 Units
6. Wii Mario Kart with wheel - (Wii) 263,000 Units
7. Call of Duty: World at War - (Xbox 360) 193,000 Units
8. Mario Kart DS - (DS) 145,000 Units
9. New Super Mario Bros - (DS) 144,000 Units
10. Guitar Hero World Tour - (Wii) 136,000 Units

Activision Tops in 2008

 Activision Blizzard posted a net loss for the fourth quarter, but the good news is that most of it was due to accounting rules for deferred revenue. The company did manage to beat the street’s expectations on sales of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Call of Duty: World at War, which were strong performers during the Christmas shopping season. For the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, 2008, Activision reported a net loss of $72 million, compared to earnings of $86 million, for the same period a year ago.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said during the earnings call that followed  that 2008 was the company’s 17th consecutive year of growth and that operating income was up 20 percent from the previous year.  Activision ended the year with $3 billion in cash and no debt.

The company also said that it would only be introducing three new original IPs in 2009:  Raven’s first-person shooter Singularity, an unnamed racing game from Bizarre Creations and Prototype. The rest of the company’s catalog will consist of familiar brands like Guitar Hero, and the next Call of Duty game. The company said that 2009 won’t see a new James Bond game - with talk of this new game being some type of driving - shooting game. Finally it was revealed that Blizzard will release at one title this year, though what it will be was not revealed.

Battle of the Bands: Guitar Hero Rocks 2008

Whether you love Guitar Hero: World Tour or hate it, one thing is for certain: This game is a colossus. The proof of that is in the NPD Group sales numbers for 2008, where total sales of Activision’s popular rock franchise managed to handily beat EA’s Rock Band 2 by two-to-one. For the full year, Rock Band 2 sold a respectable 1.7 million units on the PS3 and Xbox 360, while Guitar Hero: World Tour sold 3.1 million units.

So how did the first game in the series to feature additional instruments and the ability to sing out loud badly beat the popular Rock Band 2? The first factor should be the most obvious: brand name recognition. Guitar Hero is a better known franchise in my opinion, though Rock Band managed to gain favor amongst the hardcore and critics, the game is just not as well known as Activision’s games.

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The Rundown: Jan. 13, 2009

The Boss goes on a World Tour, Ubisoft hears the call of the Wild West again, a new FIFA champ is crowned, ninjas set their sites on Facebook and Global Agenda sets the agenda for a closed beta.
This and so much more awaits you in today’s Rundown. Won’t you partake of this bountiful harvest with me, please?

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The Rundown: Jan. 8, 2009

EA announces a stand-alone expansion to RA3, City of Heroes is available for Mac gamers, Nyko shows off at CES, EVE Online expands, SmackDown vs. RAW 09 gets some DLC and much, much more in today’s Rundown. Right after the jump…

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November Hardware and Software Sales

NPD sales data numbers for the month of Nov. 2008 are in, and to its competition’s chagrin, Nintendo continues to dominate the hardware sales chart. for the month of November, Nintendo managed to sell through 2.04 million units in North America, outpacing its own sales numbers from the same period a year ago (981K) by twofold. The Nintendo Ds also did pretty well during the month, moving 1.57 million units, up slightly from 1.53 million in Nov. 2007.

While Nintendo’s platforms continue to take the rest of the pack to the woodshed on a regular basis, there’s some good news for Microsoft and some even more bad news for Sony; the Xbox 360 sold 836K units in Nov., up slightly from 770K units a year ago beating out the PS3, PSP and PS2. The PS3 moved 378K units, but was down from 466K a year ago. The PSP moved 421K units, but was down from 567K in the same period a year ago, and the aging PS2 moved 206K units - down substantially from 496K units in Nov. 2007.  (more after the break)

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The Rundown: Dec. 11, 2008

All  the little fishies in one place. Read on.

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