'Darksiders II' tops gaming sales as retail figures drop
Gamers play with Microsoft's Xbox 360 device on display at a convention. Gaming sales dropped for a ninth straight month, according to market research.
Image by: KIM KYUNG-HOON / REUTERS
Image by: KIM KYUNG-HOON / REUTERS
US retail sales of new video game hardware, software and accessories fell for the ninth straight month in August, according to research firm NPD Group.
Overall sales fell 20% to $515.6 million.
Software sales – the video games themselves excluding PC titles – fell 9% from a year earlier to $237.7 million.
Sales of hardware such as Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 fell 39% to $150.6 million. Accessories slid 7% to $127.3 million.
The study from NPD Group tracks sales of new physical products – about 50% of the total spending.
Excluded are sales of used games and rentals as well as digital and social-network spending. The research firm estimates that when including these, Americans spent $989 million on games in August.
NPD also listed the top-selling games in August:
- Darksiders II (THQ Inc)
- New Super Mario Bros 2 (Nintendo Co.)
- Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (Square Enix Inc.)
- NCAA Football 13 (Electronic Arts Inc.)
- Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Interactive)
- Sleeping Dogs (Square Enix Inc.)
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (Activision Blizzard Inc.)
- Batman: Arkham City (Warner Bros. Interactive)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard)
- The Amazing Spider-Man (Activision Blizzard)
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