USA: Video Games Sales Down Again - Xbox Up

Microsoft has a happy hardware month

Posted by Staff
USA: Video Games Sales Down Again - Xbox Up
The NPD group, which now leaves reporting of hardware sales figures to platform holders, has announced that video games sales in the USA are not up in September 2010. They are down, year on year.

Overall sales of hardware and software were down 8% compared to last year with takings at $1.22 billion compared with $1.32 billion in September 2009.

NPD's Anita Frazier made mention, however, of digital sales, "While industry sales of new physical retail sales show a decline versus year ago, it’s important to remember that there is a growing volume of content being sold digitally, or otherwise outside the traditional retail channel."

Microsoft found itself in a happy place however, with sales of the Xbox 360 up with 483,989 units sold - that's a 37% rise compared to the same month last year. Thanks to Halo Reach for that. That is in a hardware market where hardware sales were down to $383 million compared to $427 million in September 2009 - that's 19%.

Anita Frazier summed things up, “Hardware unit sales, with the exception of the Xbox 360, are down versus last September, but a couple other platforms, specifically the PS3 and the PSP are up on an average sales per week basis as compared to August."

Bloomberg reports that, "Nintendo, based in Kyoto, sold 254,000 Wii consoles and 403,000 Nintendo DS handhelds during the month, the company’s U.S. unit said in an e-mailed statement. A year earlier, Nintendo sold 462,800 Wii consoles and 524,200 DS handhelds."

Sony has not released any figures for hardware.

In terms of game sales, Halo: Reach sold 3.3 million units in a market where software sales stood at $614 million for the month - down 6% from September 2009's $649 million.

With the launch of Move for PS3, it's also interesting to note that gaming accessories sales rose 13% making $180 million this year versus $159 million last year.

Sources:
WSJ
Bloomberg
Companies:

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