Analyst: December 2011 Will Be Growth Month, Xbox 360 and Modern Warfare 3 Are Main Causes

The NPD Group, the company that tracks retail sales of video games and hardware for the United States market, is set to launch its official figures for December In the coming days and at least one prominent analyst believes that the industry will grow by about 2 percent when compared to the same period of 2010 while the hardware market will perform worse than it did.

Michael Pachter, who is an analyst for Wedbush Morgan, believes that the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft will see an increase in sales, with the device moving 2.35 million units sold, 27% more than during December 2010, while the PlayStation 3 from Sony will also see an increase of 41 percent to reach 1.7 million units.

When it comes to declines the way will be opened by the Nintendo Wii home console, which will post a sales decline of about 53 percent, while sales of the normal DS line-up will also see a huge decrease in sales, reaching 275,000 handhelds moved, down more than 80%.

Nintendo will be buoyed to learn that the Nintendo 3DS has been estimated as having sold 1.625 million units.

The analyst has stated, “While it is almost a certainty that 2011 will end up as the third consecutive year for declining software sales, we expect a solid finish in December to drive prices for the publisher stocks higher.”

He added, “Should December sales come in at our estimate of up 2 percent year-over-year, 2011 software sales will end up down only 2 percent, a marked improvement over the down 9 percent that sales were trending through August.”

When it comes to video games the biggest sellers for December are expected to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the first person shooter from Infinity Ward and Activision Blizzard, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the open world role playing game from Bethesda.