Port Washington, N.Y. – U.S. video game sales declined for
the seventh month in a row in October, falling 4% to $1.07 billion, according
to a report from market research firm NPD Group. NPD said game hardware sales
were down 26% in October, to $280 million. "Console and portable hardware
unit sales were both down about 30% versus last October, but an increase in the
average retail price for console hardware softened the dollar sales impact a
bit," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
"The best-selling hardware system
for the month was the Nintendo DS, while the Xbox 360 was the only platform to
realize unit sales improvement over last October. While the PS3 overall did not
experience an increase from September to October, the PS3 bundle with Move
experienced a 15% increase over September 2010."
Game software sales were
actually up 6% during the month, to $605 million.
The top-selling game was
Take-Two Interactive’s (NASD: TTWO) "NBA 2K11," followed by Bethesda Softworks’
"Fallout: New Vegas" — which NPD reports sold 679,000 units in
October.
"Rock Band 3," from Harmonix — the studio Viacom recently
put up for sale — took the fifteenth spot in the sales chart, but NPD noted
that, "based on solid reviews, this game has the potential to perform well
over the holidays."
"Software sales were up 6% in dollars, driven by
console software. Interestingly, unit sales of online playable console games
were up 16% while sales of those that are not online playable were down 2%
versus last October," NPD’s Frazier added.
Related Links:
http://www.npd.com
