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The latest sales figures from market research firm NPD shows that US videogame sales fell in September by 8 per cent compared to September last year.
The figures only track boxed retail sales and don’t reflect digital downloads or the growing market in mobile based games. “While industry sales 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," said NPD Frazier said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
Total boxed videogame sales in September in the US amounted to $1.32 billion compared with $1.22 billion in September 2009. Game console hardware sales were particularly hard hit, down 19 per cent from $472 million to $383 million according to the NPD report.
However Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console bucked the trend with Microsoft spokesman Aaron Greenberg tweeting that the console sold 483,989 in the US in September, up 37 per cent from the previous year. With Microsoft having gained so much in September, the 19 per cent drop will mean bad news for Nintendo and Sony.
In a similar victor for Microsoft, Halo: Reach on the Xbox 360 dominated the US sales chart. Despite NPD recently moving to a ranked based system without revealing unit sales for SKUs, analysts reported that the platform exclusive Halo: Reach has sold 3.3 million units.
