NPD Hardware: Drops Across the Board Except for Xbox 360

The console war is underway on many fronts, among the top three companies involved, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. But what really sets the hierarchy is the monthly charts from the NPD Group research company, which charts retail sales across the United States for both consoles and video games made for them.

While last month's results painted a pretty interesting picture, with things still doing alright despite a drop for many devices and titles, it seems that June wasn't very profitable in terms of sales. As such, while May showed a 23 percent year-over-year decline, June showed an even steeper 31 % drop.

As opposed to 2008, this year is showing a general drop of only 12 percent, but seeing as how months are passing by and the drops keep getting bigger and bigger, this overall deficit will certainly grow. According to an NPD analyst, Anita Frazier, “this month saw the greatest year-over-year monthly decline since September 2000, when the industry declined 41 percent.”

But as many analysts are pegging the second half of 2009 as being the moment when the tide will turn, the fact that many titles are already being pushed back to 2010 means that this possibility and the big sales expectations “could be put further at risk,” Frazier says.

In terms of hardware sales, it seems that a drop of 38 % has been recorded, with sales reaching $382.62 million. All of the platforms have recorded declining numbers as opposed to the same month of 2008, except for Microsoft's Xbox 360, which will certainly make the company quite happy.

Here is the hardware sales chart from the NPD Group”

Nintendo DS/DSi: 766.500
Wii: 361.700
Xbox 360: 240.600
PlayStation 3: 164.700
PSP: 163.500
PlayStation 2: 152.700

Frazier took the chance to outline that even though the Wii wasn't going as strong as a few months ago, “compared against historical performance of other systems this far into the console lifecycle, the unit sales performance is still strong.”

All in all, the recession is felt even in the gaming industry, as sales aren't what they used to be. Hopefully the second half of the year will show a few increases for all the companies involved.