Videogame revenue up 18% in October

Widening Wii supply helps boost industry

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 11/14/2008

NOV. 14 | The videogame business is off to a hot fourth-quarter start, as October software, hardware and accessories revenue jumped 18% over the same month last year to $1.31 billion, according to NPD Group.

Software alone jumped 35% to $696.8 million; hardware climbed 5% to $494.7 million.

Widening supply for Wii consoles, as well as recent pricing reductions on the Xbox 360, helped boost the industry’s performance. Though still trailing the Wii and Xbox 360 in sales, the PlayStation 3 managed to deliver its best month-to-month increase at 57%.

For October, Wii was the top ranked console, selling 803,000 units. Xbox 360 came next at 371,000 units, followed by the PS3 at 190,000 units.

One soft spot were sales for portable systems, spanning PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS, which fell 14% during the month. Consoles rose 26%.

“The videogame industry grew an impressive 18% year-over-year in the first month of the critical fourth quarter,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said. “With 10 months under its belt, the videogame industry is still poised to top $22 billion in annual sales in 2008.”

Year to date, the entire games business lifted 25% to $13.1 billion.

In descending order, the Top 5 software titles for October were Xbox 360’s Fable II (790,000 units sold), Wii’s Fit (487,000), Xbox 360’s Fallout 3 (375,000), Wii’s Mario Kart (290,000) and Wii’s Play (282,000).