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July NPD: Industry Sales Slightly Dip, 360 Takes Top Slot, Football Reigns Supreme
It's about that time again. The latest NPD numbers are out. Here's what's going on in the industry.
This month the NPD numbers stayed relatively flat over last year. Video game sales as a whole (non-PC software, hardware, and accessories), slightly dipped from $850.6 to $846.6M.
"While video game retail sales show a very slight decline versus last July, we have to consider the success of Starcraft II this month, which helped the PC games category to realize a103 percent increase in dollars over last July," says industry analyst Anita Frazier. "PC Games and video game industry sales combined for an increase of 4 percent in revenues as compared to July '09."
Here is the full list of digits in millions for the reporting period between July 4 and July 31 with this year's total listed first and last year's in parentheses:
Video Games $846.6M (850.6)
Hardware $313M (281)
Software $403M (438)
Accessories $129M (131)
According to the report, hardware sales increased from $281 to $313M with Microsoft's box returning to the top slot. Could have to do with the popularity of 360 S and price cuts on older models. This is the first time since Halo 3's launch that the 360 took first.
Hardware sales (by units)
360 443.5K
DS 398.4K
Wii 253.9K
PS3 214.5K
PSP 84 K
Now on to software, which had a slight drop in sales over last year's numbers with NCAA Football for the 360 and PS3 reigning supreme in the top two slots, and Crackdown 2 taking third place. Though NCAA has had an impressive showing, Starcraft II on PC (not counted in these numbers) sold a whopping 721K units at retail in July. Galaxy 2, Red Dead, Lego Harry Potter, and NSMB are hanging in tight from last month's report, while Modern Warfare 2 has managed to crack the top 10 once again.
Software sales (by units)
1. NCAA Football 11 (360) 368.0K
2. NCAA Football 11 (PS3) 298.8K
3. Crackdown 2 (360) 208.8K
4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) 193.0K
5. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (DS) 141.7K
6. Red Dead Redemption (360)
7. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Wii)
8. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)
9. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (360)
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