Videogame sales rise on console price cuts
PHYSICAL: Seven straight months of year-over-year revenue declines end in September
By Danny King -- Video Business, 10/19/2009
OCT. 19 | PHYSICAL: U.S. videogame sales in September rose from year-earlier totals for the first time since February as the impact of recent price cuts by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft more than offset the effect of money-saving gamers buying more used titles and playing more free games online, NPD Group said today.
Sales of the PlayStation 3 were No. 1 for the first time.
U.S. consumers spent $1.28 billion on videogame hardware and software last month, up 1% from a year earlier, according to NPD Group. Software sales, led by Microsoft’s Halo 3: ODST, rose 5% from a year earlier, compared to a 15% drop in August.
Videogame sales were likely spurred by Sony’s $100 price drop of the PlayStation 3 to $299, effective Sept. 1, boosting sales of both Sony hardware and software during the first few weeks of last month. Late in the month, Nintendo cut the price of its Wii console by $50 to less than $200. In late August, Microsoft reduced the price of two of its Xbox 360 editions.
As a result, although overall September hardware sales were down 6% from a year earlier, the decline was far less than the 25% year-over-year drop in August.
The price reductions counterbalanced the effect of gamers continuing to turn to used and free games as ways to save money. Impulse game buyers are spending about $27 per title, compared to the $43 average price for a “planned” game purchase, NPD said in a separate report last week. Almost half of the so-called impulse buyers are paying less than $20 for a videogame, implying that many of these games are used.
With Sony’s price cut taking place earlier in the month, September unit sales of PlayStation 3 leap-frogged those of Nintendo’s Wii, the long-running leader by far. PS3 sold 492,000 units in the month, with Wii at 463,000, according to NPD. Microsoft sold 353,000 Xbox 360 units, and Sony’s older PlayStation 2 sold 146,000 consoles.
Year-to-date, overall videogame sales fell 13% from a year earlier to $10.36 billion, with hardware and software sales down 16% and 12%, respectively, NPD said today.
