Oct. sales – more bad news
September saw a brief respite from the bad news, but October
brought it in spades for the video game industry.
Sales of video game software dropped 19 percent, compared to a year ago to $573 million. Hardware was even worse, falling 23 percent compared to a year ago to a little shy of $381 million. That was particularly worrying, since all three systems announced price cuts recently.
The news was particularly grim for Sony from a pure numbers standpoint. The company sold just shy of 321,000 PS3 units – a 33 percent decline from September (although it was a 69 percent improvement from 2008).
Microsofts old just under 250,000 Xbox 360s, while Wii sales spiked to 507,000 units sold. That was better than September, but not enough to match the 2008 numbers – when 803,000 Wiis were sold.
As for games, “Uncharted 2” led the pack – but the real story was “NBA 2K10,” which sold 524,000 copies on the Xbox 360 and PS3 versus a measly 141,000 units for EA’s “NBA Live 10.
The full top 10 is after the jump.
|
Title |
Platform |
Publisher |
Units |
|
UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES |
PS3 |
SONY |
537,000 |
|
WII FIT PLUS* |
WII |
NINTENDO |
441,000 |
|
BORDERLANDS |
360 |
TAKE 2 |
418,000 |
|
WII SPORTS RESORT* |
WII |
NINTENDO |
314,000 |
|
NBA 2K10* |
360 |
TAKE 2 |
311,000 |
|
HALO 3: ODST |
360 |
MICROSOFT |
271,000 |
|
NBA 2K10* |
PS3 |
TAKE 2 |
213,000 |
|
FORZA MOTORSPORT 3 |
360 |
MICROSOFT |
175,000 |
|
KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 DAYS |
NDS |
SQUARE ENIX
|
169,000 |
|
FIFA SOCCER 10 |
360 |
EA |
156,000 |
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
Not to mention that for the last few months, there haven't been any blockbuster games, unless you "count" Arkham Asylum or Uncharted 2.
Posted by: Morley | November 13, 2009 at 09:04 AM
I am just curious why this is considered bad news. I mean isn't this a little expected since October had the highest numbers of unempolyment that we've had yet. I understand that large drops in sales can be bad long term indicators but there were barely a handful of quality games released in October and games are what push console sales not price cuts. Looking at the MW2 numbers I think theres not anything to be worried about
Posted by: Mister K | November 13, 2009 at 07:21 AM