NPD’s May global game industry sales data is in, and despite analysts predicting a strong month, 2010’s May was down 5 percent compared to 2009’s May, despite the worst of the recession being behind us. <\/p>\n
In May 2010 the console game industry raked in $823.5 million, 5 percent less than it did in May 2009. Hit particularly badly were hardware sales, which plummeted 20 percent this May over last May, earning $241.5 million. This is a worrying sign for the likes of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, as it indicates a slowdown in console sales which could be a sign that their current consoles are beginning the home stretch of their life span.<\/p>\n
On the bright side, game sales saw a modest 4 percent increase over May 2009, thanks mostly to Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy which both sold very well. Console accessory revenue was also up 3 percent over May 2009.<\/p>\n
Game industry continues to decline in 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n May’s week performance puts the industry 10 percent behind where it was at the same time in 2009, and 2009 was considered a bad year following 2008. For the year, hardware is down 10 percent on where it was at the same time in 2009, which is understandable as most gamers buy one console and manufacturers are going to run out of gamers to sell to at some point. However, software sales are down 6 percent for the year, which is worrying because 2010’s console install base is higher than 2009s, so there should be more gamers to sell games to, which should mean more games sold. <\/p>\n May 2010 console game sales charts<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360), 945,900<\/p>\n 2. Red Dead Redemption (PS3), 567,100<\/p>\n 3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii), 563,900<\/p>\n 4. UFC 2010: Undisputed (Xbox 360), 221,100<\/p>\n 5. UFC 2010: Undisputed (PS3), 192,300<\/p>\n 6. Wii Fit Plus (Wii)<\/p>\n 7. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)<\/p>\n 8. Alan Wake (Xbox 360)<\/p>\n 9. Pokemon SoulSilver Version (NDS)<\/p>\n 10. Skate 3 (Xbox 360) <\/p>\n Rockstar had a great month with Red Dead Redemption, which couldn’t have been released at a better time with almost nothing else competing in the same space. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was always going to sell well, and is one of the Wii’s most critically acclaimed franchises. <\/p>\n Xbox 360 software sales continue to outshine PS3, with the 360 version of Red Dead Redemption almost doubling its PS3 counterpart. <\/p>\n May 2010 Hardware sales charts<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. <\/span>Nintendo DS: 383,700<\/p>\n 2. Wii: 334,800<\/p>\n 3. Xbox 360: 194,600<\/p>\n 4. PlayStation 3:154,500<\/p>\n 5. PSP: 59,400<\/p>\n Microsoft and Sony will both banking on their forthcoming motion control devices to reinvigorate the market, and Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 redesign in particular could stimulate slowing sales.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Game sales up slightly, console sales continue to plummet <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}