by: Jose Liz-Moncion December 14, 2008 | about stocks: ATVI / ERTS / MSFT / NTDOY.PK / SNE   
Jose Liz-Moncion

The videogame industry once again proved that it is recession resistant during November.

Software sales increased 10% to $2.91 billion in November, while hardware sales increased 10% to $1.21 billion. In comparison, U.S. retail sales fell 1.8% in November.

On the software side, the big winners were Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) and Activision Blizzard (ATVI). Nintendo had four titles in the top 10 – Wii Play, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Music – cumulatively selling over 2.4 million units. Activision Blizzard had three titles in the top 10 – Call of Duty: World at War (for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) and Guitar Hero World Tour for Nintendo Wii – selling nearly 2.5 million units. Microsoft (MSFT) had the month’s best selling game with Gears of War 2, which sold nearly 1.6 million copies.

Call of Duty: World at War’s strong sales – over two million units sold on just the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (the game was also released for Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and PC) – show the strength of the franchise following last year’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Critics were unsure that the publisher would be able to follow up on the success of Call of Duty 4 since World at War takes the series back to World War II and the firm handed the development reigns to a different developer. The publisher’s success stands in contrast to Electronic Arts (ERTS), which only had one title in the top ten (Left 4 Dead with over 400,000 units sold).

On the hardware side, Nintendo once again dominated the sales charts. Its Wii and DS platforms were the best selling consoles of the month – selling over 1.2 million and nearly 1.1 million units, respectively. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 managed to outsell Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 by more than a 2:1 ratio for the first time this year.

In 2008, Nintendo has sold 7.22 million Wiis, Microsoft has sold 3.30 million Xbox 360s, and Sony has sold 2.82 million PlayStation 3s in the United States. Sony has managed outsell Microsoft 5 out of 11 times this year – most notably in June when it outsold Microsoft by almost double due to the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 – but Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has outsold the PlayStation 3 for the past 4 months.

Life-to-date, Nintendo has sold 14.59 million Wiis, Microsoft has sold 12.45 million Xbox 360s, and Sony has sold 6.06 million PlayStation 3s. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launched approximately one year earlier than the Wii and PlayStation 3.

November 2008 Hardware Sales

    * Wii: 2,040,000
    * DS: 1,570,000
    * Xbox 360: 836,000
    * PSP: 421,000
    * PS3: 378,000
    * PS2: 206,000

November 2008 Software Sales

   1. Gears of War 2 – Xbox 360; Microsoft – 1.56 million
   2. Call of Duty: World at War – Xbox 360; Activision – 1.41 million
   3. Wii Play w/ remote – Wii; Nintendo – 796K
   4. Wii Fit – Wii; Nintendo – 697K
   5. Mario Kart – Wii; Nintendo – 637K
   6. Call of Duty: World at War – PS3; Activision – 597K
   7. Guitar Hero: World Tour – Wii; Activision – 475K
   8. Left 4 Dead – Xbox 360; Electronic Arts – 410K
   9. Resistance 2 – PS3; Sony CEA – 385K
  10. Wii Music – Wii; Nintendo – 297K