July 24, 2007
Console sales show almost 100 per cent improvement
Optimism about the video games industry at this month’s E3 conference seems well founded, based on the latest US sales from NPD.
The first-half figures are in and sales of $6.1bn so far this year are up 43 per cent on last year’s $4.25bn.
The biggest increase is in console hardware sales, up 98 per cent from $853.5m to $1.7bn. Of course, a year ago, there were no Nintendo Wiis nor PlayStation 3s on the shelves.
That continues to be the case for the Wii, which is selling out as soon as it arrives in stores. June sales were 382,000 units, compared to 198,000 Xbox 360s and 98,500 PS3s.
Sony continues to put a brave face on things - issuing a press release saying June’s figure’s were 21 per cent up on May’s 82,000 sales, which beats the Wii’s 13 per cent increase.
Sony also says sales of the PS3 are up 135 per cent in the two weeks in July since it announced a $100 price cut to clear out stocks of 60-gigabyte PS3s, ahead of the introduction of its 80Gb version in August.
The company has failed to make an impression in software sales in the first half apart from God of War II and Guitar Hero 2 appearing in the Top Ten in their PlayStation 2 versions. Nintendo Wii and handheld DS games take six of the Top Ten slots, while the Xbox 360 scores with Guitar Hero and Crackdown, which was boosted by an offer to try the upcoming Halo 3.
Almost 100 per cent improvement in US console sales
Posted by: frans goes blog | July 24th, 2007 at 5:16 pm | Report this comment