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Delistings for August 2009

Posted by Brian Shiau at 3:58PM on August 18, 2009

The following stocks are candidates for delisting. These stocks were chosen for delisting due to inactivity in the stock and/or lack of discussion for an extended period of time. Delisting stocks is necessary to unlock DKP for trading and concentrate DKP in the stocks people are trading.

All shares will cash out at the last traded price. This price is determined as the fair value as the market has not viewed the price as undervalued or overvalued for some time. These stocks will no longer appear when browsing the genres and platforms pages. You will still be able to view the stocks' pages by searching for the games.

If you feel any of the following should not be delisted due to an upcoming event (such as the game has not yet been released in all regions), please make a case and post in this forum by 11AM on Friday, August 21. A stock price that you are not happy with is not grounds for continued listing.

GLS Stocks pending delisting:
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (Xbox 360)
Fallout 3 (PC)
Fallout 3 (PS3)
Far Cry 2 (PC)
Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360)
Lego Indiana Jones (Xbox 360)
Mario Super Sluggers (Wii)
Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360)
Rock Band 2 (PS3)
Rock Band 2 (Wii)
Tomb Raider (Xbox 360)
Too Human (Xbox 360)
The Last Remnant (Xbox 360)
Viva Pinata DS (DS)


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July 2009 NPD Sales Data

Posted by Brian Shiau at 3:58PM on August 13, 2009

Video game hardware sales in July 2009 underperformed market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1.24 million, about 8% worse than the market's expectation for 1.35 million units sold. Every console underperformed their respective expected sales except for the Xbox 360. Anita Frazier of the NPD Group notes that "the Xbox 360 is the only console system showing a unit sales increase year-to-date."

"The U.S. video games industry declined for the fifth consecutive month, bringing year-to-date sales to $8.16 billion, down 14% from the same time period last year," says Frazier. July software sales were significantly worse than expected, coming in at $436.99 million compared to the market's forecasted $554.1 million.

Sales of new releases Wii Sports Resort (Wii), NCAA Football 10 (Xbox 360), and NCAA Football 10 (PS3) were nearly spot on with traders' predictions, with single digit errors. However, Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360) significantly underperformed, selling 35% below expectations.

Sales of Nintendo's Wii Fit (Wii) and Wii Play (Wii) both sold well below expectations, possibly cannibalized by the new Wii Sports Resort.

The market also tracked the sales of Wii Play (Wii), which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 9.68 DKP.

The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group.

  • US Hardware in July 2009

    Title Actual units Expected units % From Expected
    Nintendo DS 538,900 557,700 -3.37%
    Nintendo Wii 252,500 314,000 -19.59%
    Xbox 360 202,900 199,500 +1.70%
    PLAYSTATION 3 121,800 142,600 -14.59%
    PlayStation Portable 122,800 131,200 -6.40%
    PlayStation 2 108,000 -- --
    Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2) 1,238,900 1,345,000 -7.89%


Where do the expected sales numbers come from?

The simExchange is the video game stock market. Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using fantasy money, players buy virtual stocks in video games they believe are under-predicting sales and short sell stocks they believe are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market." Sign up and play today.

About the predictions

Predictions on the simExchange should become more accurate over time as (1) the diversity of the pool of traders increases and as (2) more accurate players are rewarded with more virtual currency for their accuracy (thereby enabling them to form more predictions) and less accurate players lose virtual currency (thereby discounting their ability to form more predictions).


Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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October 2009 Monthly Sales Futures

Posted by Brian Shiau at 12:32AM on August 11, 2009

October Monthly Sales Futures for hardware and software are making their debut tomorrow. Please note that the October retail month is 4 weeks long.

Also remember, there are new rules regarding Monthly Software Futures. If a game does not finish in NPD Group's Top 10, the game will cash out at the sales of the #10 title.

You will be able to buy or short sell the Futures and GLS stock at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the future's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

Gran Turismo Mobile PSP (suggested by Joe80), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Wii) (suggested by shrimpjuice), and DJ Hero (Xbox 360) (suggested by SNOX07) will have GLS stocks IPOing on the same days as the futures.

A special thanks to Joe80 for putting together a list of games for this month's futures.






Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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September Monthly Sales Futures

Posted by Brian Shiau at 11:04PM on August 2, 2009

September Monthly Sales Futures for hardware and software are making their debut tomorrow. Please note that the September retail month is 5 weeks long.

Also remember, there are new rules regarding Monthly Software Futures. If a game does not finish in NPD Group's Top 10, the game will cash out at the sales of the #10 title.

You will be able to buy or short sell the Futures and GLS stock at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the future's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360) and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (PS3) will have GLS stocks IPOing on the same days as the futures. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360) GLS stock was suggested by Laoldar. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (PS3) GLS stock was suggested by PhilHarrision. A special thanks to Joe80 for putting together a list of games for this month's futures.






Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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Down bids are no more

Posted by Brian Shiau at 8:55PM on August 1, 2009

Based on user feedback, we have removed the down bids feature. The down bids often resulted in down bid wars, discouragement for discussion, and other problems. We hope removing down bids fosters a more positive community. If necessary, we will add a "mark as spam" feature if we start seeing spam appear on the site.


Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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July 2009 Rankings

Posted by Brian Shiau at 5:09PM on August 1, 2009

Check out the complete July 2009 rankings.


Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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GLS Stock IPOs for the Week of July 27, 2009

Posted by Brian Shiau at 9:46PM on July 26, 2009

You will be able to buy or short sell Global Lifetime Sales (GLS) Stocks at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the stock's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

If you want a game listed for trading, be sure to bid for it in the Unlisted Games section.






Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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GLS Stock IPOs for the Week of July 20, 2009

Posted by Brian Shiau at 11:26PM on July 19, 2009

You will be able to buy or short sell Global Lifetime Sales (GLS) Stocks and Metacritic Futures at a fixed price for 48 hours. This allows all players equal access to the stock's IPO regardless of the time they log on. After 48 hours, the futures will trade as normal. All players, regardless of Basic or Advanced trading mode, will be able to participate in the IPO. All players are limited to 250,000 DKP positions in the IPO phase.

We are discontinuing the listing of additional Metacritic Futures due to a lack of interest in trading these contracts.

If you want a game listed for trading, be sure to bid for it in the Unlisted Games section.






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June 2009 NPD Data

Posted by Brian Shiau at 3:25PM on July 16, 2009

Video game hardware sales in June 2009 came in just ahead market expectations. Total hardware units (excluding PS2) sold were 1.697 million, 9.6% better than the market's expectation for 1.55 million units sold. However, beating these expectations should be met with limited enthusiasm.

Anita Frazier of NPD Group comments: "The video games industry realized a significant decline  when compared to June 2008, the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.  The first half of the year has been tough largely due to comparisons against a stellar first half performance last year, but still, this level of decline is certainly going to cause some pain and reflection in the industry... This month saw the greatest  year-over-year monthly decline since September 2000 when the industry declined 41%."

The simExchange prediction market had correctly forecasted this downturn, with actual sales coming in at $625.8M, just 9.64% better than the expected $616.2M.

Frazier continues that the economy is taking its toll on the video game industry: "This is one of the first months where I think the impact of the economy is clearly reflected in the sales numbers.  While the aggregate of content may not be as strong as what we saw in the first half of last year, and while the consumer base willing to spend dollars on hardware at the current price points may be thinning, the size of the decliine could also point to consumers deferring limited discretionary spending until  a big event (must-have new title, hardware price cut) compels them to spend."

The one bright spot for console sales, according to Frazier: "The Xbox 360 is the only platform to have realized a unit sales increase over last June.  YTD, both the 360 and NDS have generated an increase in unit sales.   Although many track month-to-month sales changes, comparisons to May must take into account that June is a five-week reporting month while May spanned four weeks."

An interesting note is that this is the first month since Wii Play has not appeared on the NPD Group's Top 10 sellers since the game was released 29 months ago.

Frazier points out: "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 had a great debut at retail, nearly doubling the units sold in the first month at market of the previous best-two launches:  PGA Tour '05 and '07, which sold 272K units each in their respective launch months .  No doubt a combination of moving the release date of the game out of "Madden Month" into June where golf was heavily televised due to the U.S. Open as well as well-received new game features and attributes helped contribute to this success." This latest installment's strong sales were exactly in line with the simExchange's expectations.

The market also tracked the sales of Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (Wii), The Conduit (Wii), and Wii Play which did not make the top 10. The Monthly Sales Future will cash out at 19.27 DKP.

The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group.

  • US Hardware in June 2009

    Title Actual units Expected units % From Expected
    Nintendo DS 766,500 684,000 +12.03%
    Nintendo Wii 361,700 350,000 +3.34%
    Xbox 360 240,600 210,000 +14.57%
    PLAYSTATION 3 164,700 170,000 -3.29%
    PlayStation Portable 163,500 133,300 +22.66%
    PlayStation 2 152,700 -- --
    Total Hardware Units (excludes PS2) 1,697,000 1,547,800 +9.64%


Where do the expected sales numbers come from?

The simExchange is the video game stock market. Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using fantasy money, players buy virtual stocks in video games they believe are under-predicting sales and short sell stocks they believe are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market." Sign up and play today.

About the predictions

Predictions on the simExchange should become more accurate over time as (1) the diversity of the pool of traders increases and as (2) more accurate players are rewarded with more virtual currency for their accuracy (thereby enabling them to form more predictions) and less accurate players lose virtual currency (thereby discounting their ability to form more predictions).


Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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June 2009 Rankings

Posted by Brian Shiau at 4:11PM on July 5, 2009

This is the final month we will be including Community Rankings. Going forward, we will only include individual trader rankings in our monthly reports. The Community Rankings table will no longer be available.

Check out the complete June 2009 rankings.


Tags: simexchange predictionmarkets prediction+markets wisdomofcrowds web2.0


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