Gaming Industry Hit 1B in August
Thanks to fantastic games released in the past month, the gaming industry hit an all time high clinching almost 1 Billion dollars. And this is just in the US.
Today the NPD Group, North America’s primary source of game-retail statistics, released its sales figures for August. As has increasingly become the trend, the numbers beat analysts’ expectations.
The month saw $993 million of US retail revenue from non-PC game software, hardware, and accessories, up $67.5 million from July’s $925.5 million haul. The figure also marked a massive 46 percent year-on-year increase from August 2006’s $679 million, which suggests that having all three next-generation consoles in play is helping the industry to grow.
On the $302 million console hardware front, August saw Microsoft drop the price of the Core, Elite, and Pro Xbox 360s by a respective $20, $30, and $50. As a result, sales of the now- $279, $449, and $349 consoles shot up by 100,000 units, going from a combined 170,000 units in July to nearly 277,000 during August.
“The price cut was a big help, as was Madden 08 and BioShock,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier told GameSpot. “Taking the price cut prior to Halo 3 set the Xbox 360 up nicely to have a very strong holiday season.” NPD now estimates that from the 2005 launch to the end of last month, 6.3 million Xbox 360s have been sold in the US.
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