The NPD Group just released their numbers for August, and its probably the most interesting month in the past two years. My friends at work and I were talking about this quick blurb of information for hours yesterday:

Looking at it like this is confusing as Hell. For example, the first thing I thought after coming across the NPD’s numbers a few years ago: are there really 40 million people still playing their Playstation 2? Well, no, absolutely not. That’s the total number of consoles sold since the PS2 came out seven years ago. Most gamers have either traded their systems in to a store, let their consoles break and go without repair, packed it into the garage to collect dust, or gave it to a friend. The PS2 is still selling well because now that it’s run its course, it and its games are all cheap as Hell to buy, and the underclass around the world can now afford it.

That’s what’s fun about these numbers every month. If you break them down and look at what spurred what, as compared to the NPD Group’s numbers for July, things make more sense. The Wii, for example, is just an amazing juggernaut of success. Its numbers improve every month, seemingly for no reason. A new Metroid first person shooter came out last month, but that alone didn’t sell 400,000 consoles, so what did? Brand identity? Having a reputation for family friendly, interactive games that get your butt up off the couch? Or maybe just word of mouth? No matter what it was, its pretty indisputable that Nintendo has won the console war for the next several years, and perhaps Sony’s strategy of building an expensive, electronics fortress wasn’t such a great idea, while Microsoft’s strategy of sticking close to the hardcore fanbase really limited their audience and interest in their system.

Speaking of my favorite console, the 360’s numbers jumped 100,000 units this month. Ha-ooh! Ha-ooh! Ha-ooh!

It’s the console that’s been out for two years, so all the newness hype is pretty much dead. Yet its had sort of an easy time batting the PS3 down in the numbers department. For July, industry analyst Michael Pachter predicted the PS3 would outsell the X-Box 360 by 100,000 units due to a $100 price drop for one of Sony’s hardware models, but without a system selling game coming out with that price drop, and the already high $600 price point to come down from, the 360 still beat the PS3 by 30,000 units, despite no change in the Microsoft strategy. In the last month, the 360 had just a $50 price drop, bringing their core system down to about $250, and combined with games like Bioshock and a few other top tier titles, the numbers jumped over 100,000 units for August.

I’d say that the consoles are pretty much stuck where they are. The Wii won, the 360 is going to hold steady in second place, and the PS3 is going to die a slow, expensive death. Metal Gear Solid 4, the most expensive videogame ever made with a budget somewhere over or near $100,000,000, is coming out exclusively for the PS3 sometime next year. That’s not good news for Hideo Kojima – to make his studio’s money back on the game, they need to sell a copy to every PS3 owner, twice. Considering that the largest market for his franchise is in America, and the greatest density of PS3s is in Japan, I’d say he’s going to be screwed.

To get to the top of the pile, you need to pick two of these: Be the first on the market, be the best, be the cheapest. Nintendo went for the cheapest, Sony went for the best, and Microsoft went for being the first on the market. The problem for Sony is that, while who is the cheapest and who was the first is indisputable, whoo is the best is highly debatable. Public perception obviously says that the Nintendo Wii is the best console, despite far less powerful hardware. Which just goes to prove, in business, it’s not what’s inside that matters, it’s how people see you.