14 DAY TRIAL // The gaming industry certainly sees a lot of titles appear every month, but, as every market has its highs and lows, there are “dry” periods when very few new things appear in order to make the gamer drop some of his holiday budget on new titles.
Such was the case in the month of July, as the NPD group revealed its monthly sales charts in which it tracked the evolution of video game sales in the United States of America. While hardware charts were pretty dim, on the software side it has been a real battle between Electronic Arts and Nintendo.
But first, the overall numbers revealed a 29% drop in revenue, as sales of both hardware and software amounted to “only” $849 million. In terms of software sales alone, they declined by 26% to $437 million.
This prompted NPD analyst Anita Frazier to declare that: “In order for the industry to come in flat or slightly up for the total year, the back five months of the year have to come in 11% (or more) higher than the last five months of last year.”
But thanks to some major releases set to appear in the next few months, things might get back on track. “There are some big titles set to be released over the next several months, including Madden this month, which should help spur sales. The worst comps should be behind us, and looking beyond August we have The Beatles: Rock Band, Halo 3: ODST, and of course, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to look forward to.”
While Nintendo occupies the top of the board with its Wii Sports Resort title, the overall best-seller was EA NCAA Football 10, which managed to outweigh the casual title thanks to the combined sales it recorded on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The rest of the board is occupied by more Wii or DS titles, like Wii Fit, Mario Kart or EA Sports Active. The only other title to not appear on the Nintendo platform is Fight Night Round 4, which still manages to move units on the Xbox 360.
Here are the software sales charts from the NPD group:
1. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo), Wii, 508,200 2. NCAA Football 10 (Electronic Arts/EA Tiburon), Xbox 360, 376,500 3. NCAA Football 10 (Electronic Arts/EA Tiburon), PlayStation 3, 237,400 4. Wii Fit (Nintendo), Wii, 164,300 5. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo), Wii, 156,600 6. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo), Nintendo DS, 132,200 7. Pokemon: Platinum Version (Nintendo/Game Freak), Nintendo DS, 116,400 8. Fight Night Round 4 (Electronic Arts/EA Canada), Xbox 360, 116,400 9. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo), Nintendo DS, 101,800 10. EA Sports Active (Electronic Arts/EA Canada), Wii, 96,800
Frazier revealed that: “NCAA Football 10 was the top selling game for the month, with combined sales of 689K units across all platforms.” Moreover, she said, “Wii Sports Resort was the top-selling software SKU for the month with 508K units sold with a 2.5% attach rate to the hardware install base.”
She also cared to note that even though two of the biggest titles in music game genre, The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5, would debut in September, the genre was taking a beating. “Of all genres, the music/dance genre has suffered the greatest declines this year, with nearly $390 million less revenues than the same time period last year.”
With things not being that rosy on the software side, there is plenty of room for improvement, and with titles like Madden or Wolfenstein hitting this month, we might see some growth soon enough.