July Delivered Strong Video Game Sales

Combined hardware and software sales were up 17 percent from last year, even as other markets wane.

While other U.S. industries have been hit by hard times and falling numbers recently, last month’s figures from NPD Group show that the video games industry has largely been immune, continuing to surge ahead. Industry sales jumped 28 percent from June, and 17 percent from July of last year.

The position of the respective consoles hasn’t changed much from last month. The Wii reigned supreme by selling 608,400 units, the PlayStation 3 lagged behind as a distant second with 224,000 systems sold, and barely edged out the older Microsoft Xbox 360, which hit 204,000 systems sold.

As for individual games, NCAA Football 09 and Wii Fit were the big winners, along with Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS. Profits for the software segment as a whole were way up – 41 percent from last year.