September sales up 41 per cent, says simExchange

The simExchange, an online prediction market for videogames, has released its latest report estimating September sales of USD 630 million, up 41 per cent year over year.

Analyst Jesse Divnich believes that Nintendo's Wii will be the top-selling console, moving approximately 485,000 units despite the release of Halo 3. Microsoft's Xbox 360 sales will be close, however, at an estimated 423,000 units sold.

Sony's PlayStation 3 is estimated to have sold 164,000 units in September.

In the portable market, simExchange has the PSP selling 284,000 units compared to sales of 501,000 Nintendo DS handhelds. Divinich believes that the introduction of the PSP "lite" is growing the portables market, but is not cannibalizing DS sales.

Halo 3 is, of course, the best-selling title of September, with an estimated 2,980,000 copies sold. Other Xbox 360 titles with notable sales in September include Bioshock, Madden NFL 08, and Stranglehold.

Nintendo's Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is estimated to have sold 267,000 copies in September.

Heavenly Sword was the PS3's top-selling title, with an estimated 182,000 copies sold, compared to 96,000 copies of Lair. In Divnich's analysis, PS3 exclusive titles do not move hardware.

For October, The simExchange is predicting software sales of USD 554 million, which would be a 50 per cent increase from 2006.

People have already made up their mind regarding the console they are going to buy this holiday season, says Divnich, and they will be buying the Wii.

"There is no cost effective strategy that either Sony or Microsoft could implement this late in the season to change the minds of the consumers," he wrote in his report.

Gamers, developers, and investors trade stock on the simExchange market to predict how well games will sell. Unit sales forecasts are taken from this trading, not from an individual analyst employing conventional means of forecasting.