The NPD Group has released their hardware and software numbers for the month of July, representing sales for the United States for the four week period of July 5th to August 1st.

Notables this month:

• NCAA Football 10 top-selling game for July with 689k across all versions
• Wii Sports Resort top selling software SKU for July
• Nintendo and Electronic Arts dominate top ten

Hardware numbers:
NDS: 538.9k (134.73k per week)
WII: 252.5k (63.125k per week)
360: 202.9k (50.725k per week)
PSP: 122.8k (30.7k per week)
PS3: 121.8k (30.45k per week)
PS2: 108.0k (27.0k per week)

2009 Year-to-Date in US:
NDS: 4,640,700
WII: 3,276,900
360: 1,823,500
PS3: 1,241,700
PSP: 1,041,900
PS2: 893,900

Lifetime-to-Date in US:
NDS: 32,181,900
WII: 20,816,700
360: 15,683,500
PSP: 14,382,700
PS3: 8,035,500

Difference between July 2009 and 2008 Numbers
Platform: 2009 - 2008: +/- : % Change
NDS: 538,900 - 608,000: -69,100 : -11.37%
WII: 252,500 - 555,700: -303,200 : -54.56%
360: 202,900 - 205,800: -2,900 : -1.41%
PSP: 122,800 - 222,400: -99,600 : -44.78%
PS3: 121,800 - 225,500: -103,700 : -45.99%
PS2: 108,000 - 155,800: -47,800 : -30.68%

The top ten software went as follows:
01. [WII] Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo) - 07/2009 - 508.2k
02. [360] NCAA Football 10 (Electronic Arts) - 07/2009 - 376.5k
03. [PS3] NCAA Football 10 (Electronic Arts) - 07/2009 - 237.4k
04. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) - 05/2008 - 164.3k
05. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) - 04/2008 - 156.6k
06. [NDS] Mario Kart DS (Nintendo) - 11/2005 - 132.2k
07. [NDS] Pokémon Platinum (Nintendo) - 03/2009 - 116.4k
08. [360] Fight Night Round 4 (Electronic Arts) - 06/2009 - 116.4k
09. [NDS] New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo) - 05/2006 - 101.8k
10. [WII] EA Sports Active (Electronic Arts) - 05/2009 - 96.8k


Things to point out:

• Industry as a whole saw decreases from July 2008
  • Fifth consecutive month of year-on-year decline
• NCAA Football 10 combined total: 613.9k
  • 61.3/38.7 split 360/PS3
• Breakdown of top ten:
  • Software platforms: WII - 4, NDS - 3, 360 - 2, PS3 - 1
  • Software publishers: Nintendo - 6, Electronic Arts - 4
  • Software totals by platform: WII - 925.9k, 360 - 492.9k, NDS - 350.4k, PS3 - 237.4k
• Plateaus reached:
  • PSP reaches 1 million sold year-to-date
  • PS3 reaches 8 million sold lifetime-to-date

Things to look for next month:

• Madden NFL 10 releases in August

[June 2009 NPD]

The U.S. video games industry declined for the fifth consecutive month, bringing year-to-date sales to $8.16 billion, down 14% from the same time period last year.

In order for the industry to come in flat or slightly up for the total year, the back five months of the year have to come in 11% (or more) higher than the last five months of last year.

While year-to-date results are weak, there are some big titles set to be released over the next several months, including Madden this month, which should help spur sales. The worst comps should be behind us, and looking beyond August we have The Beatles: Rock Band, Halo 3: ODST, and of course, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to look forward to.


Hardware sales have slowed considerably on nearly every platform. The Xbox 360 is the only console system showing a unit sales increase year-to-date, while the NDS has the highest sales of all hardware platforms both for the month, and year-to-date.


NCAA Football 10 was the top selling game for the month, with combined sales of 689K units across all platforms.

Wii Sports Resort was the top-selling software SKU for the month with 508K units sold with a 2.5% attach rate to the hardware install base.

Of all genres, the music/dance genre has suffered the greatest declines this year, with nearly $390 million less revenues than the same time period last year.