14 DAY TRIAL // The NPD Group figures for October are out and they look pretty grim. Hardware is way down even if all major home consoles have lower prices and it seems that players are not even rushing to stores to get the latest big release. The biggest seller on the North American market has been Uncharted 2: Among Thieves from Naughty Dog and Sony, which managed to move 537,000 units to interested players.
Second place went to Wii Fit Plus from Nintendo that sold 441,000 units in one month. It seems that about half of the sales included the Balance Board peripheral, which shows that the fitness series from Nintendo manages to actually attract new players. Borderlands from Take Two and Gearbox is in third spot with 418,000 copies sold, while Wii Sports Resort is at number four.
Take Two is having a good month, with NBA 2K10 taking fifth spot on the Xbox 360 and seventh spot with the PlayStation 3 one, with combined sales of 524,000 units. Halo 3: ODST from Bungie and Microsoft is in sixth spot, while another exclusive, Forza Motorsport 3, is at number eight. The only Nintendo DS game, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days from Square Enix, is at number nine, while FIFA 10 from Electronic Arts on the Xbox 360 brings up the rear of the chart.
A quick look at the chart shows no music titles breaking into the top ten. Anita Frazier, an analyst for the NPD Group, said that “The music/dance genre saw big declines this month compared to last year. The genre generated $53 million in sales [in October] as compared to $137 million last year. Both Rock Band: The Beatles, and Guitar Hero 5 have the potential to be good gifting items for the holidays, so we should expect to see an uptick in sales over the next two months.”