NPD Group Blog » A Collective Sigh Of Relief

A Collective Sigh Of Relief

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
By Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games

Last week, when The NPD Group posted video game industry sales results for March, one could almost hear the collective sigh of relief among stakeholders; that after a fairly long drought, there was some good news to report. The industry recorded a gain of 6 percent in total revenues generated, and along with that top line gain, several records were noted as well. For me, it’s always more fun to report good news than bad, so here are just a few of the stories pulled from analysis of the data:

- March 2010 was the third best non-holiday month ever for the industry, behind March 2008 and June 2008

- Unit sales for all categories (hardware, software, accessories) were up over last March. Only hardware saw a dollar sales decline due to falling average retail prices

- PS3 unit sales increased year-over-year for the eighth consecutive month

- The PS3 platform contributed the greatest revenue to the industry over all other platforms, driven by stellar software performance with four of the top 10 games for the month

- Eight of the top 10 SKUs for the month were new releases, which is a noticeable change in recent trends

- God of War III, Final Fantasy XIII, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, all launched with significant unit sales growth over previous best-selling games in their respective franchises

And the list goes on. While one month does not a marked improvement make, the success of the new title launches along with the increase in hardware unit sales combines to help boost industry spirits considerably. That said, we all have to acknowledge that video games are still going through a transformational time as digitally distributed content becomes a bigger focus for many publishers, and social network gaming (and other free gaming options) draws the attention of more consumers. But the appeal of high-quality and deeper gaming experiences to consumers is evident in the March sales results, and that should make everyone feel better coming off what has admittedly been a tough run.

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