Following initial results, NPD has provided Gamasutra with the full Top 20 U.S. console games for July 2009.
As previously revealed, Nintendo and Electronic Arts dominated the top 10 with six and four titles, respectively, and that strength continued throughout the expanded list.
On the Wii, Nintendo's mini-game and peripheral combo, Wii Play, took the #11 spot and its update to the classic boxing game, Punch-Out!!, claimed #15. EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Wii ranked 12th when sales of the standalone game and Wii MotionPlus bundle were combined.
In addition, Nintendo's The Legendary Starfy for the DS returned to the chart for a second month in precisely the same slot, #19.
Two more EA titles made the list: Fight Night Round 4 for Sony's PlayStation 3 at 13th and NCAA Football 10 for the PlayStation 2 at 20th, the ninth iteration of that series on Sony's older console.
Other than EA and Nintendo, the publishers THQ, Activision Blizzard, and Take-Two Interactive filled out the remainder of the top 20 list.
Elsehwere, THQ's hit brawler, UFC 2009: Undisputed for the Xbox 360, made the top 20 for its third consecutive month, this time at position 14.
Activision Blizzard's movie-tie in game, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Autobots, slipped in at #16 while Prototype for the Xbox 360 dropped from the #1 spot in June to #17 in July. Finally, Take-Two's baseball sim Major League Baesball 2K9 (also for the Xbox 360) finished the month at 18th.
Nintendo platforms dominated with 12 titles in the top 20. Five titles on the chart were for Microsoft's Xbox 360. Sony's PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 each claimed 1 and 2 titles respectively.
I believe more of the accessibility part, both in price and target audience terms. My friends still play Mario Kart DS together in a lobby get-together, and sometimes we still even play Mario Kart 64 and the Mario Kart for Gamecube. Some games just have lasting value with not many games today that can live up to. I'm sure Super Mario Bros for the Wii is going to be even a bigger seller. At this point, I don't know how things are going to play out, but I do believe that the technology race should be slowed down for the time being. I blame the pressure on publishers and the media's propagando of "better technology means a better game."
As a question, do any of you guys feel another milestone of the industry coming? I mean, more like something's going to happen and it's going to either slow down game production for a while or developers are going to start doing things better? From all the news and all the games I've been seeing for a while, I have a feeling something is going to rise or fall and it's going to set us on another course of what made the booming age of games what it was during the late 80s and 90s. Cause I'm pretty sure developers are going to find simpler and cheaper ways to make their games for the effort of getting them out sooner and more effectively, which will be a good thing for buyers. In addition, maybe limitations are what the industry needs right now anyway in order to focus on more important elements, such as gameplay, story, and all the other good points of game theory that has made games such as Populous, Starcraft, and Super Mario Bros (only a few of the major successes), successful. Right now, it seems to me that unless you join a major developing company that already has money and merits, it makes it harder to be seen in the rising skyscrapers of these industry giants. But this underdog mentality is also a good thing, as it can easily make a small person/company recognizable if they do something groundbreaking and catches enough attention.
As a question, do any of you guys feel another milestone of the industry coming? I mean, more like something's going to happen and it's going to either slow down game production for a while or developers are going to start doing things better? From all the news and all the games I've been seeing for a while, I have a feeling something is going to rise or fall and it's going to set us on another course of what made the booming age of games what it was during the late 80s and 90s. Cause I'm pretty sure developers are going to find simpler and cheaper ways to make their games for the effort of getting them out sooner and more effectively, which will be a good thing for buyers. In addition, maybe limitations are what the industry needs right now anyway in order to focus on more important elements, such as gameplay, story, and all the other good points of game theory that has made games such as Populous, Starcraft, and Super Mario Bros (only a few of the major successes), successful. Right now, it seems to me that unless you join a major developing company that already has money and merits, it makes it harder to be seen in the rising skyscrapers of these industry giants. But this underdog mentality is also a good thing, as it can easily make a small person/company recognizable if they do something groundbreaking and catches enough attention.