July 09 Sales Numbers

The NCAA Football series has shown minimal growth on the 360 even as the user base has increased over the last couple years, though on the PS3 side it has been showing marginal improvement. Either way it hasn’t been an encouraging pattern as it almost seems as though sales of a college football game have peaked with them presenting very little interest to anyone outside of that group that already gets it. Certainly the total number of sales has declined as the PS2 has dropped off more than the 360 and PS3 are picking up on a yearly basis.

Last year NCAA Football 09 sold 397,600 for the 360 and 242,500 for the PS3 in the first month. Compared to 08 that was practically an identical number for the 360 while the PS3 got boost of 86,000 units.

NCAA Football 10 came in with a lack of hype and excitement but an interesting pre-release tactic offering up the Teambuilder website and ability to create teams and import them to the game. I was curious how that could affect the sales with the thinking that people who put time into creating teams would certainly end up purchasing the game. But would that have an affect and draw in people who may have not otherwise bought it?

NPD has released the official first month sales for NCAA 10. The game sold 376,500 for the 360 and 237,400 for the PS3. That represents a drop for both and a total loss of 26,200. That is a really bad sign for NCAA that it is actually slipping despite the user bases increasing. The only other yearly game that has shown that same trend is the MLB 2K franchise. So it is clear that something big needs to be done to turn things around, probably in the mold of what Madden has done from 09 to 10.

Also of note is the continuing disappointing sales of Fight Night Round 4. The game barely slipped in the top 10 with the 360 selling 116,400 in July and did not chart with the PS3. Contrary to some of the comments that had been made on my previous article regarding the first month’s sales for the game, it was sure to be heavily frontloaded and that has proven to be the case. Bad buzz likely had a big affect on why it came out of the gate selling weaker than anticipated along with the competition from UFC 2009 Undisputed.