Video Game Sales Have Dropped 25 Percent in a Year
But the economics of the industry are shifting to online platforms, different revenue models
US videogame sales extended their decline in February with a 25 percent monthly drop compared with a year ago, according to an industry tracker.
NPD Group said Thursday that total sales of hardware, software and accessories were $810 million in February, down from $1.09 billion 12 months earlier.
Videogame hardware sales were down a whopping 36 percent despite the launch late last year of the new version of Nintendo's Wii console and PS Vita from Sony. NPD said Microsoft's Xbox 360 was the top-selling device for the 19th consecutive month.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Because most games over the past year have sucked.
Giving PC gamers half ass ports of console titles will be the death of the industry.
Well, console gamers probably don't want to sink too much money on games for systems that are about to become obsolete this year, especially since they probably won't have backwards compatibility.