Videogame sales slump further in August, but Xbox 360 is king

September 10, 2010 By Fahmida Y. Rashid

The video game industry’s slump shows no signs of abating, but there is a silver lining for both Sony and Microsoft.

Video game hardware and software sales in US declined 10 percent in August, according to a report by market researcher NPD Group. Year-to-date numbers aren’t any better, with revenues dropping 8 percent compared to last year. The August numbers tell an interesting story: Sales of game software dove 14 percent, compared to the 5-percent slide for consoles and portables.

Falling 12 percent, August was the weakest month for the Nintendo Wii ever since its 2006 launch. The news doesn’t get better for Nintendo, which saw sales of its touch-screen Nintendo DS plummet 38 percent. The company is planning a successor model to the DS with a 3D screen, expected in March 2011. Despite declining sales, the Wii remains one of the best selling consoles of all time.

But it’s not all doom and gloom in the report. For the third month in a row, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3, PSP, Nintendo DS, and the Wii. In fact, both PS3 and Xbox 360 sales have seen their sales volume go up while the Wii declined. Microsoft will likely continue to have strong sales in anticipation of its Kinect motion-sensing accessory with a free game, expected in November.

Sony’s Move controller, which strongly resembles the Wii’s wand, will go on sale this month and will probably impact Nintendo’s sales numbers even more.

Showing 9 comments

Bear Sausage at 9:03pm 12th September 2010 REACH!!!!!!!!
sandar at 1:59pm 12th September 2010 who gives a fk
kaelside at 11:57am 12th September 2010 You're all fanboys! haha! lately there haven't been any great games. The only thing noteworthy was Starcraft 2 for the PC. Otherwise zip :P Things will pick up again soon with A-list titles coming up :)
XIng Woo at 10:44am 12th September 2010 Wow, downright scary dude. Game sales never slump! www.real-anonymity.es.tc
Sean Gallagher at 10:40am 10th September 2010 Maybe XBox sales are up because another batch just passed their warranty date and ring-o-death'd.
1. ioman at 11:01am 10th September 2010 They're up because of the new Xbox Slim being announced. But you could be right too! haha
2. TOsh at 9:04pm 10th September 2010 PS3 fanboys at it again. I love how you fanboys fail to talk about how the RROD has dramaticaly declined since the issues with the earlier releases of the system. The amount of 360s to fail since the introdution of the Elite has declined over 88%. Take that number, compaired to the fail rate of a PS3 or ANY electronic system, and you have an average fail rate. Face it, PS3 will not be the monster that PS1 or PS2 was.
  1. @madscribe at 10:44am 12th September 2010 To be fair, having had a 360 from both the original batch and the "we acknowledge the issue and this next refresh will fix the issues batch" to RROD on me I have to say Microsoft has earned every bit of scorn they get.
  2. Reality at 11:31am 12th September 2010 Funny TOsh...that your reply and insinuation that the previous replies were from PS3 fanboys only makes you look like a complete 360 fanboy. Nice job. And if you're going to start spewing numbers out, it's best you provide sources to prove them.