500 million online games since June last year, as FIFA and NFL each clock over 2.4 million registered users
EA is flaunting the popularity of its online game services by announcing that its Sports label has clocked 500m online games since June last year.
EA says that an average of 2.2 million online games have been played each day since June, when the publisher first started releasing its 2009 EA Sports product line. This level of online play reflects an increase of more than 175 percent from the same period last year, the publisher said. The most recent tie ratios (number of different games per console) for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii were presented by news site Gamasutra. The figures reveal that the PS3 had recently amassed a 6.5 tie ratio in North America, whereas the Wii’s was at 6.2.
NPD Analyst Anita Frazier offers a reasonable explanation for the recent trends, stating that the Wii enjoyed a striking run of hardware sales during the second half of 2008, yet the PS3 has experienced five straight months of lower year-on-year hardware sales.
The simple equation here being that hardware sales have just as much a significant effect on tie ratios as software does. Tie ratios are, after all, total software numbers divided by total hardware.
As the PS3 failed to get many new customers, its current users had many more games to purchase over the late months of 2008. The Wii, meanwhile, is selling incredibly well despite an inordinarily low turnout of significant titles.
The latest financial presentation from European video game retailer Game comes complete with lifetime European sales numbers for the current crop of consoles and handhelds. Let's take a look!
The information is presented in the form of a hardware install base chart, with data provided by GfK Chart Track and Game's own internal data, tallying the lifetime sales of each major console up to January of 2009. Taking a look at the UK numbers alone, we see that Nintendo has completely dominated the United Kingdom, with the Wii's 4.9 million topping the Xbox 360's 3.2 million and the PlayStation 3's 1.9 million. As if the Wii domination weren't enough, Nintendo's DS tops the entire list with lifetime sales of 8.8 million. What about the PlayStation 2, with 10 million units sold? It had a 4 and a half year head start, so we're disqualifying it.
So how does the rest of Europe and Australia stack up?
Well, technically we can't be sure. Game's numbers only include those European countries where Game stores are located, so only France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark,psp theme, Norway,psp themes, the Czech Republic, and Australia are represented, leaving out notable countries such as Germany and Italy, who will probably launch their own sales numbers aggressively across Europe at a later date.
The limited picture we get of Europe and Australia pretty much follows the same trends as the UK numbers, with the exception of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with Sony's console showing a 300,000 console lead over the 360. Combining both totals together still has the PS3 a million behind, but it's catching up.
Either way, the Xbox 360 looks best of the three when viewed from a tie-ratio angle.
Both the Wii and PS3 were released in November 2006, so the most recent tie ratio figures show each system’s performance after 29 months at retail. In examining the Xbox 360’s tie ratio after the same 29-month period, Microsoft’s box shows itself to have a significantly more impressive balance, at 7.5.
Interestingly, the console’s tie ratio rate has plateaued somewhat in the last eight months, as the figure in August 2008 was at 8.0 whereas today it has edged up to 8.3.
“The massive migration to online gaming has transformed the video game landscape, and this week's 500 millionth online EA Sports game highlights the radical shift that we've helped pioneer in the industry,” said Peter Moore, president of the division.
EA also provided a number of different angles to view its online volumes, stating that “4 billion minutes” of EA Sports games have been played since June, and that “35 years” of online play is amassed each day.
Both NFL 09 and FIFA 09 have over 2.4 million registered online users each, the company added.
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