December “Best Month Ever” For Game SalesWritten By Roy
2009 was a pretty strange year for the gaming industry. Generally the industry hasn’t really been affected by the recession before as people decide to increase their home entertainment budget when times are hard, rather than spending the money on going out. Buying a game is generally seen as more of an investment than a night out, and the length of games compared to their cost is favourable when compared to something like a film that only lasts a few hours.
However, earlier in the year we noted that many big figures in the game industry had started to note a loss of sales and claimed that the recession was starting to affect them. Even very recently big names like Ubisoft have reworked their sales figures to reflect a downturn in sales, especially in the big ‘boom’ market of the last few years – Nintendo products.
Despite all that bad news, the gaming industry ended 2009 on a high. The overall sales from December 2009 have topped anything the industry has ever seen at any Christmas before thanks to some very high profile releases from the company.
The overall sales across the US totalled $5.53 billion this Christmas, up a total of 4% from the $5.32 billion of last year. Topping $5 billion was an achievement in itself and something the industry only achieved in 2008.
Overall, sales were down around 8% from 2008, but considering 2008 was a record setting year on all accounts, we’re still looking at very healthy figures.
NPD Analyst Anita Frazier said: “January and February were both up, and since the decline that began in March, only September experienced growth. The big sales this month, particularly on the hardware front, is a positive move for the industry headed into what will hopefully be a recovery year in 2010.”
Not surprisingly, the Wii was the biggest winner this Christmas, selling another 3.1 million consoles just when you thought everyone in the entire universe already owned one. It certainly blows accusations that the Wii market was starting to fall apart out of the water.
Even the company’s president had announced that the Wii had started to slow down so it was a shock for everyone when the system sold nearly a million more Wii’s than it had in 2008.
The DS was the next best selling system, while the PlayStation 3 outsold the Xbox 360 over Christmas by a very small amount. This figure shows a continued demand for the PlayStation 3 at its new cheaper price point that could see it overtaking the 360 in sales more regularly in the future. Meanwhile in software sales 3 of the top 10 games were for the Microsoft console while Sony only claimed a single title in the Top 10.
The News Release was written by: Roy who produces professional