NPD Funworld stats rolled into analysts' in-boxes Monday, and the results were decidedly mixed. For the month of August 2004, the console market saw retail sales of $337 million, off 4 percent sequentially from the $350 million tallied in July, but up 4 percent year to date. Compared to August 2003, sales were up 1 percent. One analyst said year-to-date sales were $2.76 billion through August 2004, compared with 2003 year-to-date sales of $2.66 billion.

　　When it came time for analysts to check in on the Madden 2005 versus ESPN 2K5 footrace, there was no denying that Madden was the winner. According to Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities, the EA footballer sold 2.1 million units through August, versus 1.5 million units for Sega and Take-Two's title. Madden was the top-selling PlayStation 2 and Xbox title during the month, as well as the third best-selling GameCube title.

　　But while Madden scored a decisive victory in the sales camp, analysts all recognized the strength of ESPN Football 2K5, copublished by Sega and Take-Two. "Although Electronic Arts' sales were in line with our estimates," Pachter said, "we believe that investors may be concerned with the market share gains made by Take-Two's ESPN NFL game." Pachter spun his cautionary tale further, saying he expects Electronic Arts to "maintain a share of over 60 percent [in the football sector], but note that some investors may not be satisfied with year-over-year sales gains on an absolute basis should the company lose significant share to Take-Two."

　　Mike Wallace of UBS added his voice, saying, "The Madden numbers are slightly reassuring for Electronic Arts, although we still think ESPN is having an impact on Madden sales."

　　PiperJaffray's Tony Gikas noted that Madden 2005, NCAA 2005, and ESPN Football 2K5 alone accounted for 38 percent of all console game sales in August. Total sales of football games across all platforms for the month of August 2004 was 3,092,980, a jump of 45 percent from August 2003, when 2,134,090 units sold through.

　　Gikas added, "We estimate that ESPN NFL 2K5 will sell 3 million units and Madden NFL 2005 will sell 5.5 million units by the end of the football season. We estimate that sales of ESPN NFL 2K5 will cut into sales of Madden NFL 2005 by roughly 300K-400K units. In the near term, we think EA Sports will initiate sales promotions on its sports games to help maintain market share and grow 2004 sales."

　　August software sales figures were also interesting: sales of PS2 games were down 2 percent, Xbox software was up 31 percent, GameCube titles fell by 14 percent, and Game Boy Advance software was up by 17 percent. Overall, hardware sales were down 6 percent, with sales of PS2s down 27 percent, Xboxes up 49 percent, GameCubes up 9 percent, and Game Boy Advances down 16 percent. Most analysts recognized that shortages of PS2 hardware at retail outlets continued during the month.