Hardware sales were up 12 percent in July compared to the same month last year. According to July’s NPD stats, the overall video game market was down by 1 percent – $850.6m to $846.5m.
Sales for Sony’s PlayStation 3 were down 30 percent with 215,000 units sold in the US. Taking the top spot in July’s hardware race was the Xbox 360 with 444,000 units sold, likely owing to the newly redesigned system. This marks the first time since the launch of Halo 3 in September 2007 that Microsoft has topped the charts. Nintendo took second and third place with the DS and the Wii respectively. Finally, the PSP sold 84,000 units.
Below is a look at hardware sales for July:
* Xbox 360: 444,000
* DS: 398,000
* Wii: 254,000
* PS3: 215,000
* PSP: 84,000
On the software side, few big console releases led to rather light sales. The top winner was NCAA Football 11, which across both 360 and PS3, sold some 667,000 units. NCAA Football 11 was the only PS3 game on the list. It should be noted that the big winner in software was StarCraft 2, but NPD only tracks console software releases.
1. NCAA Football 11 – Xbox 360 – EA – 368K
2. NCAA Football 11 – PS3 – EA – 299K
3. Crackdown 2 – Xbox 360 – Microsoft – 209K
4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 – Wii – Nintendo – 193K
5. LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 – DS – WBIE – 142K
6. Red Dead Redemption – Xbox 360 – Take-Two
7. LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 – Wii – WBIE
8. Dragon Quest IX– DS – Nintendo
9. New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Wii – Nintendo
10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Xbox 360 – Activision