Xbox 360 maintains its lead in the U.S. console market, marking 19 months as the top-selling current-generation console in the U.S.
July 2012 U.S. NPD highlights:
· Xbox 360 sold 203,000 units in July, more units than any gaming hardware, and held 49 percent share of current-generation console sales in the U.S. This marks the 17th consecutive month that Xbox 360 has held more than a 40 percent share of current-generation console sales in the U.S. (Source: NPD Group, July 2012)
· Total retail spend on the Xbox 360 platform in July (hardware, software and accessories) reached $218 million; consumers spent more on Xbox 360 products in July than they spent on the other two current-generation consoles combined. (Source: NPD Group, July 2012)
· During the month of July, Xbox 360 held six of the top 10 U.S. console game titles including: NCAA Football 13, The Amazing Spider-Man, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes Call of Duty: Black Ops, Assassins Creed: Revelations and Batman: Arkham City. (Source: NPD Group, July 2012)
There has never been a better time to own an Xbox 360. Coming this holiday:
· The years hottest blockbuster games including Halo 4, Forza Horizon, Dance Central 3 and Fable: The Journey.
· A whole new way to interact with your TV with breakthrough experiences for the whole family such as Kinect Sesame Street TV, Kinect Nat Geo TV and Nike+ Kinect Training.
· A suite of new Xbox LIVE and entertainment experiences including Internet Explorer for Xbox 360 alongside bringing Xbox games to Windows 8.
· Xbox SmartGlass, which enables all the devices you own to work together, making your games and entertainment even better.Microsoft PR
According to the NPD Group, US games business continued its downward slide for 2012 during the month of July. Total game industry sales diminished 20 percent to $548.4 million and software sales (including PC) is down 23 percent to $278.2 million.
"These sales figures represent new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories, which account for roughly 50 percent of the total consumer spend on games. When you consider our preliminary estimate for other physical format sales in July such as used and rentals at $117MM, and our estimate for digital format sales including full game and add-on content downloads including microtransactions, subscriptions, mobile apps and the consumer spend on social network games at $439MM, we would estimate the total consumer spend in July to be $1.1B," said NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier.
"Our final assessment of the consumer spend in these areas outside of new physical retail sales will be reported in November in our Q3 Games Market Dynamics: U.S. report."
While July was a down month in what has been a down year, Frazier says there's reason to be optimistic in the near term.
"Looking forward to August, the launch of the 3DS XL coupled with New Super Mario Bros. 2 should bring a nice boost to the performance of the new physical retail channel. While August is typically 'Madden Month', Madden NFL '13 launches on August 28th which falls into the September reporting period. So, like last year, Madden will impact September results instead of August," she said.
"New physical retail sales of games hardware, software and accessories traditionally follows a very reliable seasonality pattern. Based on year to date sales, and taking into account the release slate for the back five months of the year as well as the anticipated launch of the Wii U, annual sales for the new physical channel should come in around $14.5B for the year."
Hardware shrunk 32 percent year-on-year to $150.7 million and Frazier noted that it affected almost every piece of hardware across the board.
"Of the hardware platforms that were on the market last July, only one, the 3DS, realized a unit sales increase over last year. Both the DS and the 3DS, however, realized a month-over-month unit sales increase over June 2012 while the other platforms declined," she said.
As expected, NCAA Football 13 was the leading seller for the month that saw few new releases. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, The Amazing Spider-Man and Batman: Arkham City were all in the top five, showing the boost the Summer movies The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises are giving to their complimentary video games. Just Dance 3 reentered the top five at number four, while Diablo III (a top seller the past two months) fell completely out of the top 10.
"On a SKU ranking, Pokemon Conquest is among the top 10 in sales for the month of July," noted Frazier. "The top ten games ranking includes several games that launched a number of months ago such as Batman Arkham City and Dead Island, which both received a boost in sales due to the release of Game of the Year editions. Looking forward to August, besides the launch of New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS, it will be interesting to see the performance of Sleeping Dogs which is new IP that has garnered a fair amount of buzz."
Accessories are bucking the overall trend of the industry, up 8 percent to $136.9 million.
"Accessories was the only category up in both dollars and units for the month, driven by increases in points and subscriptions game cards as well as the Skylanders character packs," she said. "Between the characters that are packaged with the Skylanders game and the sales of the separate character packs, over 25 million individual Skylanders figures have been sold through at retail in the U.S. since the launch of the game in October 2011."GamesIndustry
HARDWARE SALES NUMBERS:
Xbox 360: 203,000 (-26.7% YoY)
PS3: 135,000
Nintendo 3DS: 124,000
Nintendo DS: 124,000
Nintendo Wii: 63,000
PS Vita: 50,000
Will update with more info and numbers as we get them.
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