Video game sales fall 15% in February
Video game sales in the U.S. plunged 15% in February as skittish consumers continued to ratchet back their spending.
The bleak sales report from the NPD Group marks the 10th monthly decline in the last 12 months. Game sales fell to $624 million.
Console sales dropped 20% to $426 million, while sales of peripherals such as game controllers slipped 1% to $204 million.
The drop occurred despite three major titles released last month: BioShock 2 from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., Dante’s Inferno from Electronic Arts Inc., and Heavy Rain from Sony Corp.
“Honestly, I had expected the industry to perform somewhat better this month,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said.
In the console race, Microsoft Corp. finished first by selling 422,000 Xbox 360s. Nintendo Co. came in second with 397,900 Wii consoles sold.
Sony came in third place with 360,100 PlayStation 3 consoles sold. Still, that was up 30% from a year earlier.
The top-selling titles included BioShock 2, which sold 750,000 copies in February. Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 blasted its way to become the third-best-selling game of all time in the U.S. at 10 million copies.
