It’s that time of month again where we take a quick look at the NPD data to see how the games industry is doing.
We’re over our shame for the incorrect predictions we put out in August for September. While we predicted good things, sales were actually down across the board. Last month we made safe guesses for October’s numbers, and it looks like were were right on all counts.
We guessed that October would be a “software month,” and that looks to be mostly true. Hardware sales were only up 5%, while new software titles contributed to 35% growth. Fable II was the hot title of October, selling 790,000 copies. That’s pretty impressive as it launched on October 21st. The Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 took thrid place, with 375,00 units. LittleBigPlanet hit the charts at number eight, with 215,000 copies sold.
As far as hardware goes, Microsoft just missed their goal of outselling the PS3 2-to-1. They did manage to take the number three spot (371k), right under the Wii (803k) and DS (491k).
Predictions for November: C’mon, This is easy. Gears of War 2 will be high on the charts, as will Call of Duty: World at War. Actually, there’s too many good titles to fit in here. And hardware? I think all of the platforms will have high sales due to holiday shopping, and I expect the PS3 will suprise with strong monthly numbers.