U.S. Game Hardware, Software Sales Down
Statistic confusion spreads across the Internet
14, 15 or 16 per cent? That's the game a lot of online publications are playing at the moment with regard to the sales slump that the U.S.A. saw in August. Whichever way you look at it though, sales were bad across the pond in general last month compared to August 2008.
If you're as confused as we are about this statistics nonsense though, we've got you covered. In August, year-on-year sales (that's Aug 2009 versus Aug 2008) were down 16 per cent overall, which includes hardware, software and accessories. In terms of software, sales were down 15 per cent, with hardware sales down 16 per cent. Ignore Reuters' curveball of a 14 per cent decline - that's an overall figure from January to August 2009.
Despite the doom and gloom however, light might be at the end of the tunnel. According to Bloomberg, the 16 per cent overall drop was smaller than July's 29 per cent slump and the huge 31 per cent chop in June. Sony and Microsoft are also seeing sales increases in the marketplace, with the PS3's US sales up 72 per cent from July to 210,000 units and the Xbox 360 up 10 per cent to 215,400 units. The Nintendo Wii reportedly slumped 39 per cent to 277,400 units, but it's not clear whether this is in comparison to August 2008 or July 2009.
So, bad news for the industry (somewhat), and good news for Sony and Microsoft. Just the kind of give and take that omnipresent gods like.
If you're as confused as we are about this statistics nonsense though, we've got you covered. In August, year-on-year sales (that's Aug 2009 versus Aug 2008) were down 16 per cent overall, which includes hardware, software and accessories. In terms of software, sales were down 15 per cent, with hardware sales down 16 per cent. Ignore Reuters' curveball of a 14 per cent decline - that's an overall figure from January to August 2009.
Despite the doom and gloom however, light might be at the end of the tunnel. According to Bloomberg, the 16 per cent overall drop was smaller than July's 29 per cent slump and the huge 31 per cent chop in June. Sony and Microsoft are also seeing sales increases in the marketplace, with the PS3's US sales up 72 per cent from July to 210,000 units and the Xbox 360 up 10 per cent to 215,400 units. The Nintendo Wii reportedly slumped 39 per cent to 277,400 units, but it's not clear whether this is in comparison to August 2008 or July 2009.
So, bad news for the industry (somewhat), and good news for Sony and Microsoft. Just the kind of give and take that omnipresent gods like.
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