According to the tech blog Venture Beat, video game sales revenue dropped 8% from September 2010, to $1.18 billion for the month. Hardware sales, lead by declines in PS3 and Wii, were down by 19% to $377 million. In our preview for the figures this month, VGC had expected hardware to fall to $381 million. Software dropped off to $614 million, down 6% on September 2010, we had expected only a slight drop off in software revenue even with units down 5% as more expensive console software composed a larger share of total video game units in September 2010 than in September 2009. Accessories, thanks to Move primarily, were up to $180 million for the month - a 13% increase from last year.
NPD noted that PS3 and PSP increased their weekly sales rates over August 2010, but fell from September 2010 rates. That means PS3 likely sold about 285,000 - 300,000 units, while PSP likely came in at about 125,000 units by NPD figures (Kingdom Hearts). X360 sold 484,000 units in September - about 96,800 units per week, up from August 2010 (89,175 units per week) and September 2009 levels but still not quite at the pace of the non-holiday record for X360 set in September 2007 when Halo 3 pushed X360 to 528,000 units by NPD. X360 is up about 5% over August-September 2007 - so it will be interesting to see how October-December sales go. Wii and DS were apparently not up on last year, or up on a weekly basis from August. That puts Wii at not more than 305,000 units for September and DS at no more than 428,000 - although I have a suspicion Fraizer made a mistake regarding DS not being up on a weekly basis from August given that it had a price cut mid-month.
NPD listed the following titles as the biggest games of the month - combining all brick and mortar sales for game into a single figure. So if game x sells 10 copies on four platforms it counts as 40 copies for game x. Before NPD used to show the four versions of game x in its top ten. In other words, NPD now provides a multiplatform numberless ranking.
Halo: Reach (Microsoft, Xbox 360) - 3.3 Million
Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, PSP)
Dead Rising 2 (Capcom, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
NHL 11 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3)
FIFA Soccer 11 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Nintendo DS)
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (Square Enix, PSP)
Mafia II (Take 2 Interactive, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (Activision Blizzard, PS3, 360, NDS, Wii)
Metroid: Other M (Nintendo, Wii)
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Odds are the figures are rather bunched together in this ranking - as Modern Warfare 2 is likely at 250,000 or so between the three versions given how it has trended in recent months and Dead Rising 2 probably didn't get to more than 400,000 between the three platforms.
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