14 DAY TRIAL // The overall value of sales for the video game industry, combining retail games sales and hardware, has seen a drop of 34 percent in the sales figures delivered by the NPD Group for the month of January in the United States, when compared to the same period of last year.
Overall revenue came in at 750.6 million dollars (566 million Euro), with the hardware side of the business providing just 199.5 million dollars (150.4 million Euro).
The leader of the hardware chart is once again the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft, which celebrated its 13th month at the top, selling 270,000 units during the 28 days of monthly tracking.
This represents a decline of 29 percent when compared to December 2011, but Microsoft says that other platforms like the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3 from Sony have seen an even bigger drop.
The NPD Group no longer releases actual sales numbers for the products it tracks, but the Microsoft data suggests that PS3, Wii and 3DS sales totaled about 280,000 units during January.
When it comes to hardware accessories, sales have gone down by 18 percent when compared to January 2011, with the overall value reaching 195.2 million dollars (147.1 million Euro), with the decline linked to lower sales of the Kinect motion-tracking system from Microsoft.
The NPD Group has said that 22 percent of the accessory sales are linked to the new Skylanders line of toys from Activision.
In February, Sony will launch the new PlayStation Vita handheld on Western markets, including the United States, which might mean that the February NPD numbers might see a rebound when it comes to the value of hardware, although the decline in actual sales numbers might continue.
Nintendo is planning to launch the Wii U during 2012 and both Sony and Microsoft are expected to soon announce that they are working on next-generation consoles.