March 2010 Video Game Retail Sales Climb 6 Percent
After a rocky 2009 followed by two months of double-digit declines, U.S. retail sales of video game software, hardware and accessories saw an uptick in March. Market researcher NPD Group said Thursday that total video game sales climbed 6 percent from the same month a year earlier, to $1.52 billion. Strong sales of Nintendo’s gaming systems, new “Pokemon” games and Sony’s “God of War III” helped boost results.
Software sales jumped 10 percent to $875.3 million, well above what most analysts were expecting. In addition to “God of War,” which sold more than a million copies, two “Pokemon” games from Nintendo and “Final Fantasy XIII” from Square Enix were also top sellers. “Battlefield: Bad Company 2” from Electronic Arts was among the month’s strongest-selling games as well. Industry expectations were for software sales growth of about 3 percent, said Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst Jesse Divnich. The higher-than-expected March figures, he added, were driven by Nintendo, whose games sold much better than analysts had predicted.
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