14 DAY TRIAL // The tracking firm NPD Group will release its data for the month of October linked to the United States video game market and one leading analyst believes that overall sales will be better than those seen during the same period of last year.
Michael Pachter, who is an analyst watching the video game industry for Wedbush Morgan, has said that he estimates software sales to go up to 690 million dollars (a little over 501 million Euro), which is an increase of 14 percent over the same month of 2010.
Pachter cited video game releases like Battlefield 3, the first person shooter from Electronic Arts and DICE, NBA 2K12, the basketball simulation from Take Two, and Batman: Arkham City, the open world action adventure from Rocksteady and Warner Bros.
The analyst believes that the line-up for both October and November is one of the strongest seen in recent years, suggesting that in the coming weeks the boost in sales numbers over 2010 might increase.
When it comes to hardware sales Pachter says that the Nintendo Wii will have sold 180,000 devices during the month of October, which is a decrease of 22 percent when compared to the same month in 2010, while the Xbox 360 will again dominate the chart, with sales of 350,000 units, an increase of 8%.
Sony is estimated to have moved 265,000 PlayStation 3 home console to gamers while Nintendo also managed to sell a quarter of a million 3DS handheld devices.
The analyst suggested that hardware unit sales were the same as last year, which is a problem for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, considering that all manufacturers have cut the price of their devices and Nintendo introduced the new 3DS, which was supposed to boost its handheld line.
The data from the NPD Group will be available for both hardware and software on Friday.