U.S. Video Game Sales Crash Again in June

by Christopher Freeburn | July 13, 2012 9:39 am

June wasn’t a good month for video game consoles and games[1].

According to industry research firm NPD Group, sales of video game equipment and game titles tumbled 29% to $699.8 million last month, down from $989.5 million during the same time last year. Hardware sales — including gaming consoles — dropped 45% to $201 million.

That marks the seventh consecutive monthly decline, the Associated Press noted.

NPD’s numbers include newly purchased consoles, games and peripherals, accounting for between 50% and 60% of the overall market. A significant aftermarket exists for second-hand and rented games.

Also excluded from NPD’s numbers are games directly downloaded from online sources, especially for mobile devices including Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL[2]) iPhone and iPad and smartphones and tablets running Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG[3]) Android operating system.

Social media-based games, including those offered by websites like Facebook (NASDAQ:FB[4]) also aren’t included in NPD’s data. If social media and downloads were included, NPD calculates that June’s video game-related spending would almost double[5] to $1.36 billion, Bloomberg noted.

Sony (NYSE:SNE[6]) didn’t report June sales numbers for its PlayStation console. However, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT[7]) said it sold 257,000 Xbox 360 consoles, down from 507,000 in June of last year. Nintendo (PINK:NTDOY[8]) reported sales of 155,000 3DS consoles and 95,000 Wii consoles for the month.

Source URL: http://investorplace.com/2012/07/u-s-video-game-sales-crash-again-in-june/
Short URL: http://investorplace.com/?p=196992

---