Port Washington,
N.Y. – Video game dollar sales
declined 15 percent in February when compared with the prior-year period,
according to The NPD Group.
Sales of video games were $1.26 billion in February of this year,
compared with $1.48 billion in 2009. When broken out by category, sales of
hardware dropped 20 percent, from $534.2 million in 2009, to $426.4 million;
software dropped 15 percent, from $736.7 million, to $624.4 million; and
accessories dropped a mere 1 percent, from $206.1 million, to $204.7 million.
Nintendo DS was the best-selling hardware unit, with 613,200
units sold. Xbox 360 was next (422,000), followed by Wii (422,000),
PlayStation3 (360,100), PlayStation Portable (133,400) and PlayStation2
(101,900).
Anita Frazier, NPD analyst, said in a statement regarding the
figures: “The industry realized another month of decreased sales as compared to
last year. In fact, for most categories, unit sales declines were greater than
dollar sales. Higher average retail prices on all categories except console
hardware boosted dollar sales performance somewhat.”
Fraizer added, “Honestly, I had expected the industry to perform
somewhat better this month. Nonetheless,
strong new releases, and Easter gift-buying bodes well for industry performance
in March.”
The best-selling software title was BioShock2 for the Xbox 360.
