I admit it; I am a numbers guy. There are a lot of different ways you could slice and dice NPD numbers, but the Madden data in particular stood out to me.
On the software side, Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL 10 was the big winner, taking first place (360 – 928,000 units), third place (PS3 – 665,000 units), and sixth place (PS2 – 160,000). However, those figures were down overall from August 2008, when Madden NFL 09 sold 1 million units on the 360, 643,000 units on the PS3, and 424,500 units on the PlayStation 3. The Wii version of Madden, which sold 115,800 units last year, didn’t even make the August 2009 top 10, meaning it sold less than 10th place DS game Fossil Fighters’ 92,000 units.
There are several different facets of the Madden numbers. First, the game is not recession proof, and frankly, that surprised me because I thought it was sort of black gold. Second, PS3 numbers slightly up while the Xbox 360 is slightly down. Finally, the Wii version just cannot get anything going for it which is shocking considering the number of Wii systems out there. Of course that may point to multisystem owners; they will gravitate towards the strong PS3 or Xbox 360 systems for their football experience. My kids enjoy the Wii version of Madden 10, but I have not had a chance to check it out to see if it is new and improved over last year’s game.
