New figures from market analysis firm NPD show that Microsoft’s Halo: Reach dominated September game sales with a whopping 3.3 million units sold, but overall the video game industry saw September sales of both hardware and software down 8 percent compared to the same month last year, with revenues of $1.22 billion.
Although sales of accessories were actually up 13 percent year-on-year, totaling up some $180 million in revenue, both sales of gaming hardware (consoles and handheld systems) and game titles were down. During September, the industry moved $383 million in gaming hardware, down 19 percent from September 2009. Physical game sales were also down 6 percent during the month, totalling some $649 million, although NPD notes some game sales happen through digital channels and those aren’t reflected in its figures.
For the 2010 calendar year so far, hardware sales are down 13 percent and software sales are down 8 percent compared to 2009.
This month also marks a significant shift in the way NPD reports on video game industry sales: the firm will no longer be including unit sales for games or hardware information in its monthly reports. Although this information was always an estimate, the numbers did provide the only consistent metric by which game title and console sales could be compared over time. Without those figures, gaming industry watchers will have to rely on sales figures self-reported by game publishers…and that’s assuming publishers deign to reveal any figures at all.
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