NPD: Halo effect helps Sept. sales hit $1.3B

Zerosumgame: I bet MS can live with that kinda of nonsense, I mean... I million dolars is a milion dolars, either it be in toilet paper or high-tech devices. on-topic: the gold mine is in software sales, and it's proved that it pays to be a "hardcore games machine", "hardcore gamers" do buy loadsa games. It's amazing how 360 titles sell more than a platform that has many, many more units sold (PS2). Wii on the other hand, and due to its "casual" feelin wont sell as much ever. Perhaps a title or two (the brain stuff, party games...) but it won't be the same as the real games machine this generation. I'm not seeing the Wii Sports crowd rushing to buy MP3 like Halo supporters did.

Yeah the Wii games will push consoles...sure. Nobody is waiting for SMG to buy a Wii all the casual gamers that want a Wii already have them, plus since Nintendo cannot competently manage a supply line, there won't be enough systems anyhow, honestly they need to fire whomever can't figure out how to stop shortages, it's not hard, and i'm coming from a manufacturing background. Did Metroid Prime 3 spike sales??no, so neither with SMG or SSBB

Nice stuff! Though I think we all expected Halo 3 to do so well. Its the flagship title for the XBOX/XB360 systems.

All the same, good news all around, minus for Sony, but I think we all expect MGS4 to create a surge for them next year, so they'll have their day too.

Do you *honestly* believe "elrod92" had to post the same comment twice to get his point across?

Frankly I don't know why poeple would buy a PS3 once the 60gig is totally gone. Might as well wait another 6-months at which point you'll have a real price drop (instead of just a gimped version for the same price) and get the dual shock controllers.

IguanaBob@, yes, you are absolutely correct coz that is where the competition should have been, xbox 360 really should be in a league of its own, a lower league I mean. Competing with PS2, hahaha I can't agree more.

Microsoft owned September...you see more of that.

This is great news for gamers. Perhaps with these software figures developers and publishers will realize that they no longer have to bum rush gamers with a deluge of AAA titles from November to January! Start trickling out the games before the holidays and there will be an increase in game sales. Cheers

Who didn't see this coming? Of course a game like Halo 3 would have pushed more systems. It's the biggest game for the 360. And the most hyped. But you can't forget that Nintendo still has SMG to release, so I'd like to see how many Wii's that game pushes. Same with SSBB, but that's not untill next year.

I can honestly say that I prefer to play Halo than Half Life, but then again, I can put either DVD in my 360 later tonight.

W00t i was right, ms 1st.. nintendo 2nd, sony 3rd! man im good

Huge month for gaming. It's gonna be a long assed Jan/Feb 08 after spending so much bank on Wii and 360 games. Gotta pickup Halo3...not a big fan of Halo1. But I did enjoy the hell out of the Halo3 beta (and I'm not a big online mp fan). Still gotta finish Bioshock. Well, at least I won't have to worry about spending too much on games for my PS3! Unreal that the PS2 is outsold the PS3 in September. The 40GB PS3 announcement just came out this week. :)

@ elrod92: Actually the marketing was very important but regardless of marketing it would have sold massively as word of mouth was a good enough way of hyping the game. Halo 3 was highly anticipated well before the marketing campaign of MS so stop being a sour puss. And HONESTLY I do think Halo is better than Half life, half life has a damn poor story of just teleporters and aliens. Nothing else really happens apart from a few secret military groups attacking Gordon freeman for no reason (why would they kill him?, Why not capture him and learn what he knows?). Then the guns are all very standard apart from the gravity gun which is fun, the gameplay is good but that's preferance (I prefer to play Halo as it is more fun to me but half life has a more reslistic and solid set of game mechanics).

Do you honestly believe that sales would be so high without the ridiculously large marketing campaign? Ask yourselves how much did that cost. AND. Do you *honestly*(I stress this as much as I can)believe that the Halo saga is a better game(s) than the Half-Life saga??

Do you honestly believe that sales would be so high without the ridiculously large marketing campaign? Ask yourselves how much did that cost. AND. Do you *honestly* believe that Halo saga is a better game than Half-Life saga??

The Red Ring of Death thing is getting old. Its been well-known for months now, and it hasn't stop 360s from selling yet. Just like the PS2s early problems didn't stop it from selling. Come up with something new please.

@HCMF... LOL, nice sarsasm... seriously though, one thing i dislike the NDP stats is that it does not include Canada in its sales, so they have a skewed version of the real north-american sales.

@ Big_Boss007: never say it's a fact if it is your opinion. You see in my opinion the single player game is great fun. And if you were looking for plot, play doom. 1 man and the gates of hell, on a Mars moon - wow man thats deep!

last month, next month, the month after.... this whole holiday season is like one big vacuume to my wallet....

Big_Boss: that's your opinion, which I don't judge, but what "presses my buttons" in Halo is the plot. But Then again I read all the books, graphic novel, action figures, the whole package. Never really liked run-n-gun multiplayer, so if Halo was only SP it would be just a fine to me. And maybe because I'm old enough (unfortunatly) to say "holy S***!, this is just like Mad Max!"

NyGin07 halo 3 is better than every single game in the orange box. BUT the orange box games are still amazingly good and you get more for your 60 dollars. actually the orange box has to be the best videogame deal ever. 60 dollars for 5 games? im pretty sure it will sell 500,000 or higher next month very much wrong the half life series is so much better then halo all halo has ever really had going for it is a very excellent online service the story has never been its strong point and the only reason the onlie kicks so much rear end is because the story modes are so freaking short . if halo did not have online it would only be worth 30 bucks at the most and would never sell as much as it did fact and im not hating on halo i am just stressing my opinion that it is a very over-rated game series

Visual files, Audio files, Source code. That's all a game is, really. It's amazing that this one has gone so far with only these 3 things.

Oh.. c'mon... we're all gamers, so let's all buy us a 360 and play together. This is the GAMES machine to have, after all. Jump In!

i wonder if the 360 can sell a million units this december if they lowered the premium to 250 bucks elite to 325$ thr arcade pack to 200 bucks?

throsen-ink: At a guess I would say, the rumour of a price cut for Ps3 meant people were hanging on to see what happens, in addition, those rumours said that the 40gb wouldn't have ps2 BC, so people may have gone out and bought ps2s in haste so that they can continue to enjoy ps2 games even when they get the 40gb ps3, that's just my theory though! - would like to see a BIG boost in ps3 sales next month (Nov) after the release of the 40gb and the price drop of the 80gb

halo 3 is better than every single game in the orange box. BUT the orange box games are still amazingly good and you get more for your 60 dollars. actually the orange box has to be the best videogame deal ever. 60 dollars for 5 games? im pretty sure it will sell 500,000 or higher next month

PS2--215,000 PS3--119,000 How did THAT happen? _________ Two words: Guitar Hero.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

anzagi1 Does anyone know of a website that actually tracks total sales for the whole world, as we always get various reports each day from US, Japan etc etc but never a total for the world _______________ Yeah, the console makers and they hardly are ever straight-up with the numbers.

Does anyone know of a website that actually tracks total sales for the whole world, as we always get various reports each day from US, Japan etc etc but never a total for the world

Well I own Wii and 360. Soon enough I'll own Halo 3.

oh and da 360 has good exclusives tooo... so u cant complain abt the holidays... its goin to be fun.. enjoy!!

lol 3.3 million against thousands haha... good difference... 360 rulzz.... no wait.. halo rullzzz yeaaaaa

PSP Sold more than PS3, Pwwhahahahahhahahaahah, Thats just SAD.

strange how I look at this but, Sony means psp+ps2+ps3 = 619k unit sold which is the highest number of sold units, M$ has only xbox + xbox 360 which is still lower than sales of Sony, impressive that Sony beat M$ although we're still in M$'s biggest month with the descend of almighty Halo3. This also means that Nintendo is still number one with no doubt (selling about a million unit of DS's + Wii's). I'm not offending anyone here guys ^_^

I'm getting sick of nintendo. Just take your losses as a man and realize that you can't be always #1. I guess they don't know how it feels since the SNES.

I wish people would quit buying Madden. It just gives EA an excuse to keep exploiting the market by making a few roster adjustments and one or two minor tweaks and then reselling the same game for 60 bucks. BOYCOTT EA!

@hordaak I also have a 360 and a Wii and yes the 360 graphics outdo the Wii's, but the Wii outdoes the 360 in fun. I like a few games on my 360 but when friends come over and when I want to have fun, it's Wii all the way. It gets out just to kill thing different ways. The Wii has a broader type of games. Here's where people will push the thumps down button. It took Halo 3 the God of all games to outsell the Wii and only moved 27,000, more LOL. That's a little sad if you think about it. Reason for typing this is because if you read the reviews at GameSpot, IGN or 1UP, you can see they don't like the Wii because they only like the pretty pictures and not real gameplay.

1. Halo 3 - 3.3 million 2. Wii play - 282,000 That is a HUGE margin !

"XanderZane Uuumm... yeah, the PS3 is starting to catch up to the XBox 360 and Wii now. LOL!! This is just U.S. sales. This doesn't even include Europe or Japan. Both the Wii and Xbox 360 was beating the PS3 the past 4 weeks in Europe. Xbox 360--528,000 Wii--501,000 PSP--285,000 PS2--215,000 PS3--119,000 It's sad when your last-gen game console is selling almost twice the number of game consoles then your next-gen PS3. With the price drop of the PS3 in Oct, I'm sure sales will be higher for October, but can the PS3 break the 500,000 mark for the month of Oct?" the price drop for the 40gig probably will boost sales for the ps3 but what people aren't understanding is Sony will still be taking a huge loss. the $600 price tag for the system was a price cut before it got launched. they wanted/needed to sell it for even more money because it cost so much to have blue ray installed into the system but they knew nobody(except maybe some of these fanboys in here) would pay more than $600 for any gaming system. blue ray is the selling point for the ps3 but will also be what kills it. with every price reduction Sony is losing more and more money. they have to sell millions and millions of ps3's, soon, to start making a profit again.

Why is this story in the PS3 section!?!?!?!

this is a great time to buy a 360.. massive library of games, 3 year warranty, $50 price cut, cheap platinum hit games, hdmi enabled 360s.. something called halo. It's odd how all these parts and equipment are found on the ps3 (and even more with the blue ray drive) but the experience is completely lacking still in comparison with the xbox.

"luzer7072 Ack! That sucks that even with over a month on the market, Metroid Prime 3 has sold under 400k. How is it that the game sells 219k within four days in August, but sells only 167k over the span of an ENTIRE MONTH in September?" yea...it's basically the Heavenly Sword of the Wii.

@hordaak Exactly,with more and more people getting 40"+HDTV. Xbox360 and PS3 should sell more.

The biggest and most shocking news of all in this story, is that a PS3 title actually made it's way into the top ten software sales. Even though it is in 10th place. And, the second most shocking news is that the GBA didn't beat PS3 in sales again. It's a miracle. Oh yeah and XBOX 360 beating the Wii and DS for the first time since their launches is shocking too. And, the fact that Halo 3 sold more copies than every title in the top ten combined. Hype it up game fans.

I own a wii and a 360. I bought the wii cuz my gf likes the games on it. But honestly, the graphics are NOT next gen. They are exactly comparable to the game cube (which I also own). So aside from the controller, what else does it have to offer? For example, after I played wii tennis to death, I bought Metroid prime 3. I like the controls, but the graphics were pretty sad compared to my 360 games. I have a 1080P samsung lcd monitor, and the games on the 360 look sharp as hell, and the games include special effects that are missing on wii games. I have a question for wii owners...If assassins creed came out on all systems including the wii, which one would you want to play? the one for the ps3 or 360 (which looks fantastic) or the one on the wii??? I dont even think they can make a game like that on the wii. As more and more games come out on all systems, the more people will want to step up to either a 360 or ps3. They will see how the game cube..err...wii graphics are just sad looking, and they will stop buying it (unless you only like games where you jump around collecting stars at 480P resolution). As for the success of the wii...I just dont get it.

The PS3's numbers were disappointing because no outstanding games are available for the console yet. Out of what's available, only Resistance and Heavenly Sword are decent enough to merit playing. This will change. Many will buy a PS3 just to play R&C, MGS and Killzone. This is Microsoft's year, let's face it. Next year will be better for Sony though. It's just disappointing that it's taking Sony so long to get its act together. It makes you wonder if they really know what they're doing.