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U.S. videogame sales fall again in November

The U.S. videogame industry has fallen once again, says the NPD Group, dropping 7.6 percent for November, lamely entering the holiday season on a low note.

Overall, hardware sales fell 13.4 percent while software sales dropped 3.1 percent.



"This should not be viewed as a healthy start to the holiday season," says top videogame industry analyst Jesse Divnich.

The sales slump is even more surprising given the huge launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the strong Thanksgiving/Black Friday week of sales.

Says NPD analyst Anita Frazier: "Breaking even seems more out of reach. In order to break even to last year, December sales would have to be up 36 percent over December 2008." Overall, the industry is down 12 percent year-on-year.

For hardware, the Wii topped the list at 1.26 million units sold, followed by the Xbox 360 at 820,000 and the PlayStation 3 at 710,000. The PS3 was the big winner, with sales rising 90 percent year-on-year. Xbox sales were flat, and the Wii was down 35 percent.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 11 Dec 2009 0:44

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• 6 comments

• Hellrasin

  Of Course there's a "DROP" in Consumer Spending for the Video Game Industry. With the current "State" the US Economy is in Consoles for Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony are going to be 1/2 of what is expected. More
  people are buying the games 1st Consoles later when its reasonable to do so. And as a result the Big 3 will speculate that losses are due to Piracy which is the horse used with a downward slopping economy

  11.12.2009 03:40 #1

• SDF_GR

  I it is absolutely normal for november, every year we say same things for same news.

  11.12.2009 05:41 #2

• emugamer

  Originally posted by Hellrasin: Of Course there's a "DROP" in Consumer Spending for the Video Game Industry. With the current "State" the US Economy is in Consoles for Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony are going to be 1/2 of what is expected. More
  people are buying the games 1st Consoles later when its reasonable to do so. And as a result the Big 3 will speculate that losses are due to Piracy which is the horse used with a downward slopping economyThe "Big 2" might complain about piracy. Sony can't blame piracy. Why would they with year-on-year rising sales? And why would their sales be "1/2 of what is expected" with a year-on-year increase?
  
  @SDF_GR
  agreed

  11.12.2009 08:44 #3

• Tecbot

  The ps3 alone did over 760k units sold worldwide during black friday week....a few days ff releases in japan the one console that wont be hurting this season is the ps3, after x-mas it has some amazing titles hitting to keep the ball rolling this year.

  11.12.2009 11:29 #4

• LissenUp

  And Jagoff Activision's pricing of the "Most popular" game at 59.99 of COD Modern Warfare 2 doesn't help with sales on the PC.

  11.12.2009 11:37 #5

• borhan9

  Well we do have to realize this year the world has had a massive decline in consuming things because of the financial crisis that the world was going through and is still going through in the USA soo wait till next year and numbers can or may improve.

  11.12.2009 17:16 #6