Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 17, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
According to pressetext, US sales revenues from video-game consoles and software amounted to 1.18 billion dollars this January. The American market-research institute NPD Group announced this. Revenue generated in this sector had fallen by six percent compared with the same month of the previous year. However, this decline resulted only from the fact that five weeks were counted in January 2007, while only four were counted this year. Viewed over a one-week period, sales had risen by an average of 18 percent. In terms of the competitive situation, Nintendo remains in front with its Wii: approximately 274,000 Wii devices were sold on the US market last month. Sony was in second place with 269,000 PlayStation 3 units sold, followed by Microsoft with 230,000 Xbox 360 consoles.
In connection with the unexpectedly high sales figures for video-game devices in January, Nintendo and Microsoft have already announced that supply shortages of their devices cannot be ruled out. ‘Because of strong sales in December and unexpectedly high demand in January, the Xbox 360 is currently partially sold out on the US market,’ Thomas Kritsch, Marketing Manager Xbox, explains in response to an enquiry from pressetext. The quantities required for January business had been underestimated. ‘On the European market, however, sufficient stock is available,’ Kritsch reassures. In Kritsch’s assessment, the supply shortage in the USA should also settle down again quickly. ‘We produce in China. A delivery takes six weeks on average,’ the Marketing Manager explains. Kritsch cannot understand the accusation that such shortages are often deliberately staged to increase the hype around particular products: ‘From a business perspective, such supply difficulties are very bad, because we lose consumers to the competition this way.’
Nintendo also already announced that supply problems in January could not be ruled out. The company had not completely replenished its own stocks during this period because production had been shifted mainly to the peak sales period of the holiday months, said Regiie Fils-Aime, President of Nintendo of America. For the coming months, however, the company plans to increase Wii deliveries in order to support the launch of various important game titles such as ‘Super Smash Brothers’. Nintendo had already experienced supply shortages on the US market at the beginning of the strong Christmas business because of high demand.
The most-purchased console game was Activision’s military shooter ‘Call of Duty 4’ for Xbox 360, which, according to NPD Group, moved around 331,000 copies across US shop counters. ‘The Easter business will be particularly important,’ says Kritsch. This period is the second most important after the Christmas business.
Further information:
- NPD Group
