The video game industry continues it's outperforming ways this quarter according to newly released reports form NPD Group and Wedbush Morgan.
Video Game sales as a whole in the US rose 38% in September compared to the same time last year. So that's an increase from $536 million to a new record of $777 million. Although maybe that's not totally surprising since this time last year, a lot of Xbox owners were preparing for Xbox 360. I know I personally didn't buy any new games for my Xbox after August.
These numbers reflect a higher than expected rate of software both current and next gen. Current gen software didn't recede as fast as predicted. Though sales were down $44 million over last Sept, the industry had predicted sales would be down $60 million, so sales are better than estimated. Next gen software sales however were predicted to be at around $130 million but actually came in at $143 million, so better than expected.
The Nintendo DS Lite set video game hardware sales on fire. Hardware sales are up 71% which is around $244 million with the DS Lite selling 400,000 units bringing it's installation base in the US to around 6.3 million units. The Xbox360 was yet again beat by the Playstation 2 in sales numbers for September. That is pretty surprising since the Playstation 3 comes out in two months!
The Xbox 360 sold only 260,000 units compared to the Playstation2's 305,000 units. The PSP on the other hand had a dismal month not even selling as many units as the Gameboy Advanced. So far through Sept 06, Microsoft has sold 2.7 million Xbox 360's in the US and the industry expects to see another 400,000 sold in Oct and between 750,000 and 1 million in November and 1.5 - 2 million in December. A lot of that estimate depends on the situation with Playstation 3 availability.
Software (game) sales rose 29% or $446 million dollars and accessory sales rose 21% or 88 million dollars compared to this time last year. The best selling games were of course for the Xbox 360 which included titles such as Saints Row, Lego StarWars II and Pokemon.
The average sale price of a game in Sept was $32.49 which is up 1% over last year, The higher price of next gen games was offset by the heavy discounting of last gen software and portable games. Sales of Xbox 360 games were up significantly over last month with August sales being $89 million and Sept. being $104 million.
The Industry's estimates were also shattered by the number of games estimated to sell mover then 100,000 units. The estimates were ten games would sell those numbers in Sept. but we actually saw fifteen games sell more than 100,000 units and last Sept. there were only seven.
All in all the video game industry is very healthy and sales are looking very nice for the Christmas Shopping season.
Video Game sales as a whole in the US rose 38% in September compared to the same time last year. So that's an increase from $536 million to a new record of $777 million. Although maybe that's not totally surprising since this time last year, a lot of Xbox owners were preparing for Xbox 360. I know I personally didn't buy any new games for my Xbox after August.
These numbers reflect a higher than expected rate of software both current and next gen. Current gen software didn't recede as fast as predicted. Though sales were down $44 million over last Sept, the industry had predicted sales would be down $60 million, so sales are better than estimated. Next gen software sales however were predicted to be at around $130 million but actually came in at $143 million, so better than expected.
The Nintendo DS Lite set video game hardware sales on fire. Hardware sales are up 71% which is around $244 million with the DS Lite selling 400,000 units bringing it's installation base in the US to around 6.3 million units. The Xbox360 was yet again beat by the Playstation 2 in sales numbers for September. That is pretty surprising since the Playstation 3 comes out in two months!
The Xbox 360 sold only 260,000 units compared to the Playstation2's 305,000 units. The PSP on the other hand had a dismal month not even selling as many units as the Gameboy Advanced. So far through Sept 06, Microsoft has sold 2.7 million Xbox 360's in the US and the industry expects to see another 400,000 sold in Oct and between 750,000 and 1 million in November and 1.5 - 2 million in December. A lot of that estimate depends on the situation with Playstation 3 availability.
Software (game) sales rose 29% or $446 million dollars and accessory sales rose 21% or 88 million dollars compared to this time last year. The best selling games were of course for the Xbox 360 which included titles such as Saints Row, Lego StarWars II and Pokemon.
The average sale price of a game in Sept was $32.49 which is up 1% over last year, The higher price of next gen games was offset by the heavy discounting of last gen software and portable games. Sales of Xbox 360 games were up significantly over last month with August sales being $89 million and Sept. being $104 million.
The Industry's estimates were also shattered by the number of games estimated to sell mover then 100,000 units. The estimates were ten games would sell those numbers in Sept. but we actually saw fifteen games sell more than 100,000 units and last Sept. there were only seven.
All in all the video game industry is very healthy and sales are looking very nice for the Christmas Shopping season.
