Falling in line with analyst expectations, United States video game software sales saw a rare increase this month, rising 3 percent year-over-year for September 2011 to $630.2 million, led by EA's Madden NFL 12.
Overall U.S. video game retail sales, however, were still down year over year, dropping 6 percent to $1.16 billion. With retail PC game sales excluded, this figure falls to $1.13 billion.
Hardware
Revenue from new console sales dropped 9 percent percent from September 2010 to $349 million, according to figures provided by the group.
Despite weak year-over-year comparisons, combined revenues are up from last month, which saw $249.4M in hardware sales.
It's worth pointing out that September was a five-week month while August had only four, which skews this figure slightly. The weekly sales average, however, still rose between the two months.
In its own announcement, Microsoft said that the Xbox 360 sold 438,000 units in September, marking the seventh month in which the console has held more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share. Overall, the platform saw $534 million in total retail spend in September.
The NPD group reported that video games accessory sales dropped 14 percent year over year to $154.8 million.
Here are the U.S. video game hardware retail sales for September 2011:
| Hardware | Units Sold |
|---|
| PlayStation 3 | 364,000-374,000* | | Xbox 360 | 438,000 | | Wii | 240,000 | | Nintendo 3DS | 260,000 | | Nintendo DS | 145,000 | *Estimation is based on 20 percent rise over last year's sales disclosed by Sony.
Software
Total console and portable retail game sales (PC excluded) saw a boost this month, jumping 3 percent year-over-year to $630.2 million.
The top 10 retail games in the United States for September 2011 are as follows:
| Top 10 Games (New Physical Retail only; across all platforms incl. PC) | Rank | Publisher |
|---|
| Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP)** | 1 | Electronic Arts | | Gears of War 3 (360)** | 2 | Microsoft (Corp) | | Dead Island (360, PS3, PC) | 3 | Deep Silver | | FIFA Soccer 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, 3DS) | 4 | Electronic Arts | | NHL 12 (360, PS3) | 5 | Electronic Arts | | Deus Ex: Human Revolution (360, PS3, PC)** | 6 | Square Enix Inc | | Resistance 3 (PS3) | 7 | Sony (Corp) | | Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Wii, NDS, 360, 3DS, PS3, PSP, PC) | 8 | LucasArts | | Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, NDS, Wii, PC)** | 9 | Activision Blizzard | | Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (360, PS3, PC) | 10 | THQ | **NPD's data includes all versions except those included in hardware bundles.
Of all the high-profile titles that debuted during September, the top selling game for the month was EA's Madden NFL 12. Despite launching on August 30, all sales for the title were counted for September 2011. Following Madden was Epic Games' Xbox 360-exclusive Gears of War 3.
In third place was Deep Silver's multiplatform open world title Dead Island, followed by EA sports titles FIFA Soccer 12 and NHL 12.
Last week's top title, Eidos Montreal's Deus Ex: Human Revolution, landed at number six, while Relic's breakout multiplatform shooter , Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, closed out the charts at number 10.
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Which is great, but not actually giving us more information than that.
GoW3 and Madden drove sales, I am sure, but at this point the 360 is the best selling console without any doubt, with or without a promotion. What I don't think is, that Kinect has much to do with it, no Kinect title made an appearance in the NPD charts in 2011, this means, at least to me, Kinect doesn't steal much of the Wii consumer base, because when the Wii was the best selling console, it's casual titles regulary made an appearance in the NPD charts.
I think Pachter was right that Nintendo waited to long for the Wii U, and the problem with the Wii U is that it's really kind of an intermediate console, like the Dreamcast. It has some pretty novel qualities, like being able to seperate the controller from the console entirely, with a different experience simultaneuosly on both, but I don't know if that will have the same mass appeal as the waggle. The Wii U seems more targeted directly at gamers, which probably isn't the smartest move for Nintendo right now.
Still good job 360. PS3 has a good month.
Wii is way down compared to other guys but just below last year's numbers.
I have lost interest in the numbers until next gen and even then not as interested without all the sales numbers.
Wii U is a big question mark as far as its position in the market. Still seems like every other Nintendo console after the SNES. Good for 1st party games. And anything good from 3rd parties should be considered a blessing.