US Video Game sales for July

I'm going to need some time to fully digest these numbers, but one thing is clear. These are very important results. A lot of things happened in July. And a lot of stuff DIDN'T happen. So these numbers say a lot.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=27219

This was an interesting article I found.

Still though, it was a victory overall for Sony, it helped bridge the gap in between their sales with the Xbox 360. It was kind of surprising, Canada had the PS3 selling 2000 more consoles than the 360, I thought the U.S. would follow suit.

Although Sony still outsells Microsoft in Japan and in Europe they outsell them 3-1,. So technically Sony is outselling them worldwide, but by a small margin.

Here's my prognosis. The lack of Wii titles in spite of the huge sales tells me that Wii Sports is still the Killer App. The casuals don't need another game other than that, and Wii Play is a nice compliment for the extra Wiimote. Sales will continue to bloom and will probably see a boost with WiiFit. However, the LONG TERM (3-5+ years) fate of the Wii remains unclear from a hardcore perspective. The only hardcore games that have made a big dent on the sales charts have been port-em-ups of games that were the BEST LAST GEN HAD TO OFFER. So, if 3rd party games have to be equivalent to a Zelda or RE4 in quality to sell, then that's not a good situation, since most devs just CAN NOT make games that good. GH3's sales for the Wii will indicate a lot, as well as Madden Wii, and FIFA Wii. Essentially, we still have to see if the big selling decent quality 3rd party titles can sell on the Wii. If they can't, then it doesn't matter how many Wiis are sold. They'll make a hell of a lot of money for Nintendo, but you won't see a significant shift to Wii development (at least not by Western devs).

The increase in 360 sales is directly attributable to NCAA. The correlation in sales makes this point obvious. The HD sales console has been chosen, and it's the 360. This will only become more true with Madden in August. Considering that Sports games are one of, if not THE, highest selling genre in the US, this is a great situation for MS. They've effectively captured the hardcore sport gamer. They've also captured the hardcore action/shooter gamer as well. There's the hardcore japanese gamer that they still need to capture, which they will this fall with Katamary and Ace Combat. And then the casual gamer which they won't capture this year, period. But the 360 Arcade and Scene it? Are decent starts. Still, they need a Killer App akin to Wii Sports, and that just isn't on the seeable horizon.

Sony's situation is concerning. If software doesn't sell on the PS3, then a PS3 port might stop making financial sense. However, that might affect games where only a PS3 + 360 version would make financial sense, therefore that game won't be made. This would be bad for everyone. And if the scenario laid out in paragraph 1 comes true (3rd party games don't sell on the Wii) then that'd be really really bad. What would probably happen is that the game would still be made for the HD consoles, it's just that the budget will be scaled back resulting in inferior quality. Therefore any hardcore gamer that enjoys great visuals should want both the 360 and PS3 to do well. Or at least one of them do EXTREMELY well. It seems that the 360 might have crossed the threshold that it can support almost any game, but we'll see. I mean 100K+ for Tenchu Z? Come on! In which case Sony just needs to make sure that they can ride the port trails until their big heavy hitters come out, and we'll see how that affects things.

Sony needs to do something this holiday season to have a chance at shifting market positions. Maybe Home really will be revolutionary? Or an MGS4 demo will be released that just totally blows everything away? Either way, if Sony doesn't do something big, then the PS3 is going to get slaughtered this holiday, and will relegate the PS3 to 3rd place for the foreseeable future.

Here's a hilarious GIF that sums things up pretty well

HK-47, what's it going to take until you admit the PS3 is LOSING and people don't want it for a reason. The 360 was low, but still ahead of the PS3. And just wait until next month/two months.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned anything about Halo 3. If the new Halo is really as good as its expected to be, 360 might blow everything else out of the water. Also BioShock for 360 looks sick and may sell a few consoles too. GTA4 will definitely boost sales for both PS3 and 360. Once the novelty of the wii controller wears off and more content is made for BluRay and HDDVD - the HD consoles will prosper. Also, any 3rd party out there could create a gyroscopic control for the 360 or the PS3. However, like HK said all of this is only true in the US in Japan they wont touch the 360 unless it gets a Final Fantasy exclusive, which just wont happen.

Even if Halo 3 is the greatest game of all time, the 360 still won't surpass the Wii. The Wii is selling to a completely different contingent group of people that don't really care about games and gaming. They just buy the Wii because it's a lot of fun. Period. Though I do think that if Halo 3 and Mass Effect are mindblowingly ridiculously ridiculous, then the PS3 sales could suffer even more.

Third party games just DON'T SALE at all on the Wii! Look at Madden 08 for Wii, I thought that would sale like hot cakes on Wii, but on Amazon the PS3, PS2, and 360 Versions were all CREAMING it! Still though they have Metroid so August will be a good month for Nintendo, although I though Madden Sales for Wii would be higher.

As for Microsoft they will do fine, but they should focus on battling Sony. They will have a sales spike with Halo, but it won't be enough to overtake the Wii. But Microsoft really has nothing to worry about this Christmas.

As for Sony, they got their sales up, but their still missing their killer app. I feel like Sony is saying: Resistance will suffice for the future until Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy 13 come out. But if we have to wait THAT long for a killer app then that's ridiculous. Still though, if Heavenly Sword lives up to the hype, Sony could have a killer app on their hands.

Heavenly Sword scored very well in Play Magazine (10 out of 10) although they love every game, but we'll see. Two small sites: Polish Gamer or someting and Nextgenireland.com gave it 9+'s and Gamepro gave it a 4.5 out of 5.

Edge gave it a 6, but they also gave God of War 2 a 7, Bioshock and Gears an 8, and so maybe they were off on this one too? IGN U.K. gave it a 7, but the fact that Red Steel would get a higher score than this (The same author of HS's review gave RS an 8) seems unlikely at worst. I hope Folklore's good to, I LOVED the demo.

But still, they need to do something with that 80GB if they want a good Christmas, otherwise it will be 2006 all over again, except for some better games.

Hopefully the Ps3's sale's and a nice check from the Blu-Ray Disc Association, combined with 300 sales will make Warner go BR exclusive to help bring this ridciulous format war to a close. I mean honestly, if Warner goes HD DVD exclusive, than this war will last for like another 5 years. Plus Warner sits on the BDA's board of director's, unlike Paramount was, so hopefully they will at least stay neutral.

BTW Dialup, I think Europe and Japan would disagree with you.