Another month and video game sales take another slide. It’s the third month in a row sales have slid. Should game makers be worried probably not but if sales keep sliding towards the holiday season then there could an issue.
The monthly sales drop is getting to be a familiar thing. While gaming continues to grow as a business, sales through digital distribution is growing while purchases at physical retail locations is falling.
Hardware sales are also down, with a 39 percent decline from last year’s $248.4 million to $150.6 million. Video game software sales were down 9 percent, to $237.7 million from $261.8 million a year ago.
The poor overall performance in August matched the 20 percent decline in July. In June sales were off 29 percent, and May saw sales drop 28 percent when compared to a year ago. Total spending on software sales was $252.8 million, down 11 percent from $283.3 million a year ago.
NPD is working with video game research company EEDAR to try to come up with more accurate numbers for global digital and physical game sales.
The top game of August was THQ’s Darksiders II for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PC. Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS was second. The next top-selling games were Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream, Drop Distance for the 3DS, Electronic Arts’ NCAA Football 13, and Warner Bros.’s Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes.
