IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

NPD: Video Game and PC Game Industry Totals $20.2 Billion in '09

Posted January 14, 2010 by James Brightman

The final NPD tally is in. When combining retail PC game sales (which came in down 23% at $538 million) with total video game console industry sales (down 8% to $19.66 billion), the games industry in the U.S. yielded $20.2 billion during 2009. December alone generated $5.53 billion for the console game industry (up 4%). NPD noted that this was the biggest month in the industry's history. Software though was down 7% to $2.58 billion, while hardware rose 16% to $2.19 billion. 

Nintendo had an incredible holiday, selling 3.81 million Wiis and 3.31 million DS units during December. Six of the top 10 games of December were for Nintendo platforms (and 7 of the top 10 for all of '09). Sony meanwhile put up very solid PS3 numbers, selling 1.36 million units, which beats the Xbox 360's 1.31 million units in December. This was the biggest month ever for PS3 so far and the first time the console broke 1 million unit sales. Rounding out hardware, the PSP sold 654.7K units and the PS2 sold 333.2K units.

Even with the holiday surge, there's no doubt that 2009 was a tough one for the games business. All categories saw declines, except portable gaming hardware, which saw a 6% bump in revenue (driven by the DS in large part). Console hardware saw the biggest decline last year, falling 13% compared to 2008. Software was hit hard too, as console software and portable software both experienced declines of 10%.  Video game accessories were down just one percent though. It's important to keep 2009 in perspective, however. No, it didn't quite match 2008's record numbers, but the year was still the second best ever for the U.S. game industry and the Entertainment Software Association is still very optimistic for the industry's future.

"December marks just the fourth month of the year where the industry saw an increase over last year.  January and February were both up, and since the decline that began in March, only September experienced growth.  The big sales this month, particularly on the hardware front, is a positive move for the industry headed into what will hopefully be a recovery year in 2010," noted Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group.

“Clearly, 2009 was tough year for consumers and the national economy. However, the bigger picture is one that underscores the industry’s strength; 2009 and 2008 were the highest grossing years in our industry’s history,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA. “That said, our industry’s structure is solid, and I anticipate a strong 2010 with a pipeline full of highly-anticipated titles.”

"When we started the last decade, video game industry sales, including PC games, totaled $7.98B in 2000," added Frazier. "In ten years, the industry has changed dramatically in many ways, but most importantly it was grown over those years by more than 250 percent at retail alone. Considering there are many new sources of revenue including subscriptions and digital distribution, industry growth is even more impressive."

Below are the three pertinent software charts for your perusal: Top 10 Video Games for 2009, Top 10 PC Games for 2009 and Top 10 Video Games for Dec. 2009. Enjoy!

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.