Game Sales Drop 29% in July

13 Aug, 2009 By: Stephanie Prange

---

Video game sales fell 29% in July compared to the same month last year, from $1.19 billion in July 2008 to $848.9 million last month, according to The NPD Group.

Hardware sales fell even more — 37% — from $447.71 million in July 2008 to $280.94 million last month. Including accessories and other segments, game business revenue fell 12% in July 2009, compared to the same month last year.

“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,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “In order for the industry to come in flat or slightly up for the total year, the back five months of the year have to come in 11% (or more) higher than the last five months of last year.”

She noted that there are several hit titles coming in the last half of the year, including Madden NFL 10 this month, The Beatles: Rock Band, Halo 3: ODST and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which should help spur sales.

Among the next-generation hardware consoles, the Xbox 360 sold 202,900 units, the PlayStation 3 sold 121,800 units and the Wii sold 252,500 units in July.

“Hardware sales have slowed considerably on nearly every platform,” Frazier said. “The Xbox 360 is the only console system showing a unit sales increase year to date.”

The top three selling games for the month were, in order: Wii Sports Resort w/Motion Plus (508,200 units), NCAA Football 10 for the Xbox 360 (376,500 units) and NCAA Football 10 for the PS3 (237,400 units).

Bookmark it: digg del.icio.us technorati yahoo facebook twitter