October Hardware NPDs: Wii Remains Dominant, PS3 Idle

It’s been a rollercoaster of NPD-related emotions recently, first learning we would no longer receive the precious NPD numbers each month, and then finding out they were surprised by the backlash, and then finally that they were flip-flopping. Luckily we didn’t miss a month, and right on time, we’ve got the NPDs for October.

Here are the hardware figures (September comparison in parentheses):

• PlayStation 2 – 184,000 (215,000)
• PlayStation 3 – 121,000 (119,000)
• PlayStation Portable – 286,000 (284,500)
• Xbox 360 – 366,000 (527,800)
• Wii – 519,000 (501,000)
• Nintendo DS – 458,000 (495,800)

The Xbox 360’s huge drop is obviously due to Halo 3 not launching a second time (which I somehow think Microsoft could pull off, if they really wanted), but 366k is still a very nice number and roughly 90k more than Microsoft pushed in August. Likewise, the PlayStation Portable continues to sell extremely well, and much better than in August where it did just 151k.

As for the Wii and DS, what is there to say, really? Sure, the DS dropped a bit, but its 458k crushes everything but the Wii by a margin of nearly 100k. The Wii’s increase was most likely due to a larger number of units shipped.

The PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 both had a quiet month, with both failing to impress. However, if Sony CEO Howard Stringer’s statements are correct, November could be a much brighter month for the PS3.