June Video Games Sales Drop

Video Game Sales fall a fourth straight month as of June. This 4 month decrease in sales within the video game market makes largest year to date decline the industry as seen in nearly nine years.
According to market researcher NPD Group sales of computer game hardware, software and accessories dropped 31 percent from the same month as last year.
This decline marketed the fourth straight month to see a decline in sales this year, even though the gaming industry promoted its products as a cheap form of entertainment. However because of the recession consumers are cutting back on spending, which as a result has also seen less hit game launches in recent months verses the corresponding period in 2008.
Even though sales have declined, the video game audience has grown. But many of these audience members are playing games online for free.
Hardware sales in June tumbled 38 percent to $382.6 million from $617.3 million. The Nintendo Wii not surprisingly was the month's best-selling console system with 361,700 units sold, and the Nintendo DS was the top selling handheld gaming system with 766,500 sold.
Video game sales dropped 29 percent to $625.8 million from 4875.8 million. The best selling video games included Prototype for the Xbox 360, fighting game UFC 2009 for the Xbox and the fitness game EA Sports Active for the Nintendo Wii.
So in all industry sales are down 12 percent in a year to date comparison of last year. According to researchers a strong performance in the back half of the year could create a break even to a higher sales increase from last year.