NPD Group: Video Game Industry Declined by 20 Percent During February

The NPD Group, which tracks video game related sales on the United States market, has announced that the industry has declined by 20 percent when compared to the same period of last year, with overall sales coming in at just 1.06 billion dollars (801.2 million Euro).

Video game hardware sales were actually a bright spot in the NPD Group report, showing a decline of just 18% when compared to February 2011, and again the overall winner was the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft, which managed to sell 426,000 consoles during the month.

It is the fourteenth full month that the Xbox 360 has spent at the top of the United States hardware chart and Microsoft recently stated that it plans to keep that position all through this year.

Nintendo also offered official sales numbers for the month of February, saying that the Wii has managed to see an increase of 50 percent to react 228,000 consoles sold while the 3DS handheld has moved 262,000 devices to players just as the older DS has continued to sell well, with 135,000 units delivered to customers.

Sony has not offered any official sales numbers for the PlayStation 3 home console and the PlayStation Vita handheld but mentioned that both gaming platforms had significant momentum.

When it comes to video game sales, the decline was even worse, with the decline coming in at 24 percent.

The video game top ten includes:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Activision Blizzard
Final Fantasy XIII-2 – Square Enix
UFC Undisputed 3 – THQ
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – Electronic Arts
Just Dance 3 – Ubisoft
NBA 2K12 – Take Two
Soul Calibur V – Namco Bandai
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Bethesda Softworks
Twisted Metal – Sony
Battlefield 3 – Electronic Arts

Accessories also registered a decline when compared to February 2010, despite the ongoing popularity of the Activision made Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure.