NPD U.S. November 2009 Thoughts
Winners
-Modern Warfare 2 (Activision/Infinity Ward) blockbuster record breaking launch. 6.07 million units
-New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo). 1.4 million units. I expect this one to have long legs
Losers
-Uncharted 2 (Sony/Naughty Dog) disappeared out of the top 20 after being number one last month. Stunning decline for probably the best game this year. I feel bad for Naughty Dog because they deserve better
-Borderlands (Take-Two/Gearbox) dropped big from last month
-Dragon Age Origins (Electronic Arts/Bioware) had a tepid launch with 362K units sold on 360. These are not the kind of numbers you pay $775 million for
-Tony Hawk Ride (Activision) had a disastrous launch with only 114K units sold
-Music games (Activision/Electronic Arts/Harmonix-Viacom). Where are Band Hero? Rock Band Beatles? and DJ Hero? Poof gone. No wonder Harmonix laid off 13% of its staff. This genre may be a one hit wonder fad
-GTA: Episodes from Liberty City (Take-Two) sold under 160K retail in October and November. It’s clear Rockstar would of been better off not doing DLC and doing a traditional Vice City type retail marketing launch
-Michael Pachter (Wedbush Securities). I don’t get how Michael can be repeatedly SO WRONG and still be the most famous sell-side videogame analyst with the most press. Let me cite just a selection of his whiffs in the last few months. 1) Buy Gamestop (went from high 20s to low 20s) 2) Brutal Legend to sell millions of copies (off by a few million) 3) Nintendo will launch Wii HD (directly denied by the company) 4) GTA: Episodes from Liberty City will sell 2.25-2.75 million at retail (it sold 160K)
-Forza Motorsport 3 (Microsoft) disappeared after last month’s launch. It’s a quality game too. This doesn’t bode well for Gran Turismo 5 next year
Net-net
-Overall numbers were a disaster. If you have negative software comp when your hardware installed base is 16.5 million units bigger y/y in the month of the biggest game launch ever, that’s pathetic