Report: U.S. Video Games Sales Sink for 6th Straight Month

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 11, 2009 - 7:03am.

Port Washington, N.Y. - U.S. video game sales slid for the six month in a row in August, down 16% from a year ago to $909 million, and are now down 14% year-to-date, according to sales data compiled by market research firm NPD Group. Hardware sales fell 25%, to $298 million, although NPD noted that all consoles except Sony's (NYSE: SNE) PS2 realized sales increases over July levels.

Nintendo again led overall with sales of 244,400 Wii consoles and 552,900 DS handhelds.

Microsoft's (NASD: MSFT) Xbox 360 sold 215,400 units, while a cheaper PlayStation 3 pushed sales up to 210,000 for the month, up 72% from July.

"The price cuts implemented on the PS3 and 360 hardware already made an impact on unit sales, despite having been executed fairly late in the month. It will be interesting to see the full impact of the new price points on September sales," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Electronic Arts' (NASD: ERTS) "Madden NFL 10" was predictably the top-selling game in August, with sales of nearly 1.9 million units across all platforms.

Other titles in the top ten included Nintendo's "Wii Sports Resort" (754,000 units) and "Fossil Fighters" (92,000); and Square Enix's "Batman: Arkham Asylum" (593,000) and "Dissidia: Final Fantasy" (130,000).

NPD's Frazier also examined the music-based games genre, which is set for several anticipated releases this month.

"With the introduction of 'Beatles: Rock Band' and 'Guitar Hero 5' in September, a lot of folks have inquired about the performance of these titles and the music/dance genre," said Frazier.

"While sales of this genre are down 46% year-to-date, unit sales are down much less because lower prices are playing into the dollar sales decline. It's still the third best-selling genre for the year after General Action and Multiple/Other Sports (where 'Wii Fit' resides)."

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