Retail Sales continue decline for the ninth consecutive month in August, dropping 20 percent from a year ago, according to market research firm NPD. Hardware sales totaled $150.6 million for the period from July 29 to August 25, and dropped 39 percent.
The industry is experiencing a long-term slump in retail sales as buyers move to digital downloads and games on mobile devices. If you add sales from those mediums the NPD estimated that U.S. consumers spent $989 million on games in August. Gamer spent $391 million on subscriptions based games, mobile games, social network games, digital full game downloads and added-on content.
NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement, "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 August, such as used and rentals at $104 million, 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 $391 million, we would estimate the total consumer spend in August to be $989 million."
Xbox 360 remained the top-selling console for the 18th straight month with 193k units sold. But this number was down from the 308k units sold last year during the same period. Xbox 360 represent 48 percent of the market share for current generation consoles.
Nintendo's 3DS XL portable represented 44 percent of the company's total 3DS unit sales in the month of August, according to NPD. The sales are pretty noteworthy because only seven days of 3DS XL sales were taken in to account by the report.
The best-selling titles for the period between July 29 and August 25 are:
1. Darksiders II (360, PS3, PC)
2. New Super Mario Bros 2 (3DS)
3. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (3DS)
4. NCAA Football 13 (360, PS3)
5. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSV, PC)
6. Sleeping Dogs (360, PS3)
7. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (360, PS3)
8. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, NDS, Wii, PC)
10. The Amazing Spider-Man (360, PS3, NDS, 3DS, Wii)