NPD: video game industry growing

The NPD Group has announced that sales of both video game hardware and software have grown substantially when compared with the same time period last year. Video game hardware sales have risen 28 percent, and software sales have increased by 11 percent for the first half of this year.

"The sales boost in the first six months of the year is great news for the video game industry, considering video game sales for annual 2000 were down for the first time since 1997,'' said Richard Ow, account executive, NPD Interactive Entertainment. "We anticipate 2001 to be a very profitable year for the video game industry. This is especially true since 50 percent or more of the sales usually come during the fourth quarter. Even more importantly, two highly anticipated systems, the GameCube and the Xbox, will debut this November."

The NPD Group attributes the rise in sales to the launch of Nintendo's Game Boy Advance and Sony's PlayStation 2 and the reduced price of Sega's Dreamcast. NPD also claims that software from the older generation of consoles still makes up 75 percent of all software sales. Nintendo is responsible for the three top-selling video games from the first half of the year. Pokemon Stadium 2 for the Nintendo 64 is the top-selling game for the first six months of 2001, followed by Pokemon Silver and Pokemon Gold for the Game Boy Color, Madden NFL 2001 for the PlayStation 2, and Super Mario Advance for the Game Boy Advance.