The NPD Group has just released its new-format sales report for the month of September. Total industry sales in the physical channel (including PC games) has come in at $1.22 billion for the month, representing a decline of 8%. Hardware sales dropped 19% to just $383 million, software sales fell 6% to $614 million, but accessories were actually up 13% to $180 million. NPD notes that this was largely due to the launch of PlayStation Move.
"Accessories was the only category up in dollar sales for the month, driven by sales of Specialty Controllers and Audio. Specialty controllers include the new Playstation Move Navigation controller and Sports Champions bundle, which contributed to this accessory type's growth," revealed NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier.
As we noted in our previous story on Xbox 360, Microsoft's console was number one in September, and NPD seemed particularly impressed. "Xbox 360 hardware sales were up versus last year, and this month marks the best month of unit sales for the platform yet in 2010 which says a lot considering sales are up 34% on a year-to-date basis," noted Frazier.
Concerning hardware, Frazier added, "Hardware unit sales, with the exception of the Xbox 360, are down versus last September, but a couple other platforms, specifically the PS3 and the PSP are up on an average sales per week basis as compared to last month (August 2010). Interestingly, the average retail price of hardware increased notably this month, driven primarily by the Xbox 360 Halo: Reach bundle and the PS3 Move bundle."
Here's the new top 10, which is by title (no longer ranked at SKU level):
1 Comments
October 15, 2010
Certainly there's no way to spin being down 8% as a good thing, but I have to wonder how much of that 8% drop is directly attributable to the free-fall of Wii software?
If you charted just non-Wii platforms year-over-year, what would the results be?