"Madden" August Sales Up 2% From '07, But Wii Sales Sluggish

By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

EA Sports Has Sold 2.3 Million Copies Of "Madden NFL 09"

EA Sports sold 2.3 million copies of "Madden NFL 09" last month, according to sales figures released late Thursday by the NDP Group, a 2% rise from sales of last year's version of the videogame title in August '07. Earlier this week, EA said its sales of "Madden" during the month translated to $133.5M in retail sales, a 6% bump from a year ago. Overall, "Madden" garnered the top three slots for the overall best-selling videogames last month, for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Playstation 2 versions, respectively. The Nintendo Wii version of the title posted in the No. 9 slot, but sales of "Madden" for that platform were still beat by more than a 3-to-1 margin by those for the eight-year-old PS2. The difference between the growth in total "Madden" unit sales and retail volume is driven in part by a $90 commemorative version being sold this year to mark the game's 20th anniversary. Overall, the videogame industry generated $1.08B in combined hardware and software sales during August, a 9% bump from the same month in '07 but the first single-digit percentage growth in same-month sales in more than two years. The following chart shows "Madden" sales for the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and Nintendo Wii versions from both August '07 and August '08.

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