14 DAY TRIAL // Video game tracking firm NPD Group has announced that sales figures for the month of July on the United States market and the overall value of sales has declined by no less than 26 percent, which means this is the worst performance at retail since October 26.
Sales of both video game hardware and software managed to generate 707.7 million dollars and the NPD Group says that the biggest decline for the month was seen in the hardware sector, down close to 30 percent when compared to the same period of last year.
The best selling home console for the month was the Microsoft made Xbox 360, which the company says has managed to sell 277,000 units during the 30 day period to beat both home console rivals, the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii.
Nintendo has said that the DS line up has been the best sold device during July although it has not offered individual sales numbers for any of the platforms and has not said whether the new 3DS has managed to see a rebound in sales.
Anita Frazier, who is an analyst with the NPD Group, has said, “This was the first month that the Xbox 360 saw a year over year decline since December 2009. This is more of a reflection of robust sales last July, which was the biggest month for unit sales of the 360 in 2010 outside the holiday months.”
She added, “Last year’s sales of the 360 hardware platform were driven by the introduction of the Kinect-ready slim form factor SKU.”
The NPD Group says that the industry will likely rebound before the end of 2011 although August will likely be another tough month, mainly because of the lack of significant releases to drive up hardware sales.
Sales of accessories were down when compared to July 2010 but Sony emphasized a strong performance from the PlayStation Move.