NPD Updates November Sales, Adds Peripheral Specifics

Following last week's news from NPD regarding U.S. video game hardware and software sales throughout November, NPD has today released additional information concerning the sales of video game accessories for the month, noting strong sales driven by Nintendo's Wii remote and Microsoft's wireless Xbox 360 controller. According to the statistics released by NPD, November saw sales of 270,000 Wii remotes in the U.S., a figure that represents more than half of the 476,000 consoles sold in the region during its debut month. While the Wii console itself comes packaged with a single remote, the controller's rapid sales seem to have been spurred by the Wii's support of up to four controllers as well as the system's pack in multiplayer title Wii Sports, among other multiplayer launch offerings. The second top selling peripheral for November was Microsoft's wireless controller for the Xbox 360, which sold 251,000 units in November in the U.S. Interestingly, the company's recently released HD-DVD add on for the Xbox 360, which allows console owners to watch movies released on the emerging high definition HD DVD disc format, only sold 42,000 units for the month. This compares rather poorly to sales of the PlayStation 3, which comes with competing Blu-ray drive as standard. The PS3 sold 197,000 units during its first month, and thus has theoretically created a much larger initial early adopter user base among gamers for the format, though admittedly it is far too early to declare any sort of victory for either side. NPD has also updated the industry's year to date figures as well, noting slightly decreased figures for YTD (though not changing the November stats) - but still showing an increase of 36 percent in hardware sales for year to $3.01 billion. Console hardware specifically was up an impressive 69 percent to $1.88 billion, while sale of portable hardware was up a slight 2 percent to $1.13 billion. In addition to the previously released monthly and life to date sales figures for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3, NPD also confirmed that as of November, the user base for Sony's PlayStation 2 had climbed to 35.8 million, followed by Game Boy Advance users, which number 34.3 million. In addition, the Nintendo DS boasts an install base of 7.6 million players in the U.S., followed by the PSP with 5.7 million owners.