14 DAY TRIAL // The NPD Group has revealed data that shows that the overall units sales moved through digital distribution on the PC platform are higher than those registered sold through brick and mortar stores on the United States market.
For the initial six months of 2010 full digital downloads accounted for about 11.2 million sales while physical purchases only registered 8.2 million units.
This comes after parity between the two distribution means was reached during 2009.
The NPD Group numbers also suggest that physical sales still maintain an edge in terms of actual value of the games sold, holding 57% of the revenue for the first six months of the year.
The problem with tracking the PC market, even for a firm like the NPD Group, is that at the moment free to play models with microtransactions are not taken into account.
The data can also be problematic because the NPD Group relies on surveys to extrapolate the size of the PC market.
Anita Frazier, an analyst with the NPD Group, stated, “One major finding from this latest report is that the 'big got bigger' in the first half of 2010, with both Steam and Big Fish capturing a bigger share of full-game PC games digital download sales than they did last year”.
She added, “The overall decline of PC games when combining sales via both digital downloads and physical retail sales is impacted by the expansion of social network gaming as well as the continued expansion of free game options.”
The company says that at the moment Steam is biggest digital distribution player, followed by Direct2Drive, EA.com and Blizzard.com.
Currently only PC gaming has seen a surge in digitally distributed video games with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo still interested in moving most titles via the traditional boxed form.
Sony tried a download only console with the PSP Go, which so far has seen disappointing sales.