NPD: StarCraft II far outsells console games in July

[Matthew DeCarlo]

NPD has released a fresh batch game rankings for you stat trackers out there, with the industry as a whole remaining flat at $847 million year-over-year in July. The Xbox 360 pulled ahead to take the top sales position for the first time since September 2007 according to the research group, moving 444,000 units -- a boost that is surely tied to the recent console refresh. Nintendo's DS fell 26% to 398k shipments, and the company sold 254k Wiis. The PlayStation 3 placed fourth with 216k units, a 44% increase, and the PSP dropped 32% to 84,000.

Software performance paints a similar picture. The Xbox 360 version of NCAA Football 11 was the top selling console game with 368,000 copies sold, while the PS3 version trailed at 298k. Nearly 209k copies of Crackdown 2 for Xbox 360 were shipped. After that, all but four of the remaining top 20 console games are for a Nintendo device. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) still made the cut at number 10. Impressively, StarCraft II shattered those figures, selling 721,000 units in its few days at retail (that's non-digital US copies only).

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https://www.techspot.com/news/39963-npd-starcraft-ii-far-outsells-console-games-in-july.html

 

[Relic]

Way to go Blizzard, besides the Sims they are the only ones that can bring that kind of strength to retail PC sales imo. Be interesting to see what happens with the rest of this month. Also those 360 numbers are surprising, didn't think they'd move that many with a refresh. Curious to know how many are new owners vs replacement owners.

 

[Chazz]

Relic said:
Curious to know how many are new owners vs replacement owners.

Not as many as people would lead you to believe. The red ring of death was almost completely phased out like 2-3 xbox revisions ago. It's a stigma that people unjustly throw at Microsoft for their xbox 360 console years after it's been fixed..

Yet, when the PS2 had a faulty lens alignment issue, I don't remember people constantly trying to throw that jab at Sony. And Sony basically said "**** you" to their customers, they didn't extend peoples expired warranties... Kinda ironic,the internet is.

 

[Chazz]

I somehow cut out my SC2 comment, but I ordered a digital copy and I know quite a few people who did the same. The download servers were quite slow too from all of the congestion, I'm sure blizz would be in the million mark if those were counted... not to mention worldwide sales.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

chazz said:

Relic said:
Curious to know how many are new owners vs replacement owners.

Not as many as people would lead you to believe. The red ring of death was almost completely phased out like 2-3 xbox revisions ago. It's a stigma that people unjustly throw at Microsoft for their xbox 360 console years after it's been fixed..

Yet, when the PS2 had a faulty lens alignment issue, I don't remember people constantly trying to throw that jab at Sony. And Sony basically said "**** you" to their customers, they didn't extend peoples expired warranties... Kinda ironic,the internet is.

Blogging, forums and social networking weren't quite as established then as they are now. The first versions of the PS2 had a 40% failure rate, I remember I worked for EB at the time.

I'm not surprised Starcraft 2 has sold so well. Blizzard released a hell of a good game and it's not like we get games of that caliber everyday. Now the sooner they release Diablo 3 the happier I'll be.

 

[Guest]

I will always trust Blizzard to be a company that supports PC gaming only unlike all these other companies that sold out to the inferior consoles.

 

[motrin]

i just might buy this game while still full priced just to show some PC support in the #'s

 

[teklord]

Goes to show PC can still move large numbers of quality games in spite of rampant piracy. So let's see Red Dead Redemption, Super Street Fighter IV, Halo 3, etc already. sheesh

 

[LinkedKube]

Way to go Blizzard, besides the Sims they are the only ones that can bring that kind of strength to retail PC sales imo. Be interesting to see what happens with the rest of this month. Also those 360 numbers are surprising, didn't think they'd move that many with a refresh. Curious to know how many are new owners vs replacement owners.

Did you just put Sims and "fresh" in the same paragraph?

 

[mattfrompa]

supersmashbrada said:

Way to go Blizzard, besides the Sims they are the only ones that can bring that kind of strength to retail PC sales imo. Be interesting to see what happens with the rest of this month. Also those 360 numbers are surprising, didn't think they'd move that many with a refresh. Curious to know how many are new owners vs replacement owners.

Did you just put Sims and "fresh" in the same paragraph?

I'm pretty sure the Elders of the Internet consider that a punishable offense.

 

[Gars]

if some1 know how to make profit from games in long term, that's Blizzard
waiting to see how Diablo III will make it (in 1-2 years probably)

 

[tengeta]

This is no surprise, if a new Grand Theft Auto came out tomorrow then it would far outsell PC games for a while.