Research firm the NPD Group has released its U.S. retail sales figures for January 2008.
Software sales for the month were up by 11 percent to $611 million, hardware sales dropped by a quarter to $378 million. Overall the industry was down 6 percent for the month managing to reach $1.18 billion compared to January 2007 sales of $1.25 billion.
Part of the decline was due to the fact that NPD’s January 2007 reporting period was five weeks, while January 2008 was four weeks. NPD analyst Anita Frazier pointed out that the figures are better when the reporting period is taken into account.
“At the top-line, on average sales per week basis, January 2007 was actually up nearly 18 percent as compared to last year,” Frazier said. “And the big winner was console software which was up nearly 50 percent when compared on a level playing field to last year.”
NPD said that the Nintendo Wii sold 274,000 units in January, followed closely by Sony’s PS3 which sold 269,000 units, ahead of the Xbox 360 with 230,000 consoles sold.
The NPD Group’s January 2008 U.S. Game Industry Sales
Category / Total / Change
Video Games: $1.18 billion -6%
Video Games Hardware: $378 million -25%
Video Games Software: $550 million +11%
Video Game Accessories: $191 million -4%
Total Sales Per Week: $295 million +18%
Hardware Sales (in units sold)
Wii: 274,000
PlayStation 3: 269,000
Nintendo DS: 251,000
PlayStation Portable: 230,000
Xbox 360: 230,000
Game Software (in units sold)
1) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (360, Activision) – 331,000
2) Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 298,000
3) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Activision) – 240,000
4) Rock Band (Xbox 360, MTV Games) – 184,000
5) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360, Activision) – 183,000
6) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) – 172,000
7) Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360, EA) – 144,000
8 ) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (PS3, Activision) – 140,000
9) Mario Party DS (DS, Nintendo) – 139,000
10) Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS, Sega) – 133,00
