AfterDawn: News

U.S. gaming sales down 29 percent in July

The U.S. games industry has seen its fifth straight month of double-digital decline news from the NPD Group. Combining all hardware, software and accessories on the market, gaming sales dropped 29 percent from July 2008 during the month, raking in around $848.90 million compared to last July's $1.19 billion total.

A dramatic drop was witnessed for hardware, with sales falling 37 percent. The Nintendo DS platform topped the charts having sold 538,900 units, but the Nintendo Wii had an uncharacteristic month, selling 252,500 units. While lower than usual for the Wii, it still beat the Xbox 360 by almost 50,000 units. Microsoft's console took third place with 202,900 units - 2,000 shy of its July 2008 total.



In fourth place, Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) moved 122,800 units, followed by the PlayStation 3 (PS3) with 121,800 units and finally, the PlayStation 2 (PS2) at 108,000 units. Total hardware sales amounted to $280.94 million. Software sales dropped 26 percent in July compared to July 2008, bringing in $436.99 million. Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort topped the charts, selling 508,200 copies. The only other title to make it to the top 10 was Electronic Arts' NCAA Football.

The game came in second place on the Xbox 360 platform with 376,500 copies sold, and third place with 237,400 copies sold for the PS3 (so you could give it the #1 title spot fairly). The sale of accessories dropped 12 percent to $130.97 million.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 13 Aug 2009 20:03

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• 6 comments

• solamf30

  Shocked there is an article about sales being down and the word piracy wasn't mentioned

  13.8.2009 21:52 #1

• Mysttic

  That's likely because *Gasp* there's also a global wide recession. But don't you know, piracy caused the recession too.

  14.8.2009 02:17 #2

• emugamer

  Where are the games? If I personally found more games worth spending $60 on, I'd buy them all. Heck, I have Uncharted 2 on preorder for same day delivery. Was anything good even released in July? I couldn't find anything, so I stretched my gameplay on inFamous another month. I'm not a sports guy, so I can't speak for everyone. If Sony or MS spend the money to make killer exclusives less than 5-6 months apart, they will see their money 10-fold.

  14.8.2009 12:02 #3

• lxhotboy

  Sales will peak again once the PS3 slim in launched and the xbox360 counters with their price cut as well. Christmas Holiday sales will pick back up as well.

  14.8.2009 18:16 #4

• plutonash

  Why the hell don't they release killer games during the summer. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out, that during the summer kids have alot of free time, and disposal cash due to summer jobs. It's simply mind-bogging! If the idiots at the MPAA can figure it out why doesn't the video game industry.

  14.8.2009 19:36 #5

• borhan9

  Quote:The U.S. games industry has seen its fifth straight month of double-digital decline news from the NPD Group. Combining all hardware, software and accessories on the market, gaming sales dropped 29 percent from July 2008 during the month, raking in around $848.90 million compared to last July's $1.19 billion total.I laugh when i read this i would still be smilling they are not in the red they should just expect it and realise by the end of the year and early next year it will increase.
  But come on from a billion to a million and they are cryin about it,come on wake up there are bigger problems in the world than a loss of profit.

  15.8.2009 22:17 #6