Sales of video game hardware and software in the United States plummeted last month according to new data from market research firm The NPD Group. The firm’s January figures suggest that sales of video game hardware fell 38% to $199.5 million, down from $324 million in January 2011. Video game software sales slid 38% as well in January, falling to $355.9 million, and sales of accessories in the U.S. dropped 18% year-on-year to $195.2 million. Total industry sales were down 34% to $750.6 million. “January retail performance experienced steep declines with a lack of software launches, and poor Hardware and Accessory performance partly related to bad comps from Kinect-related success in Jan’11,” NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in a statement. “Outside of new physical retail sales, we estimate that the consumer spend on other ways to acquire content including used games, full game and add-on content downloads, social network games, mobile games, rentals and subscriptions accounted for an additional $350 – $400 million in sales.” Callahan noted that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was the best-selling console for the sixth consecutive month in January, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the top-selling software title. A complete list of NPD’s top-10 games for the month follows below.

Nintendo recently published a note in which it said it will report an annual operating loss of 45 billion yen ($575 million) for the December quarter. Analysts had expected the Japan-based gaming giant to report a 4.2 billion yen loss, Reuters said Thursday. The company now expects to ship 10 million Wii consoles, instead of the original 12 million projected, and 14 million units of its portable 3DS gaming consoles, down from 16 million units. ”We had higher expectations for the year-end season, but failed to meet them,” President Satoru Iwata said while speaking to press in Osaka, Japan. Three analysts speaking to Reuters all agreed that Nintendo needs to rethink its strategy and understand that consoles could be a thing of the past. ”Their time of growth [from console systems] is over, and, while I don’t think the company will cease to exist, if they don’t move into new categories, they will no doubt lose the great scale they’ve amassed,” Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management in Tokyo, told Reuters. Satoru Iwata has previously said that creating games for Apple’s iOS mobile platform is “absolutely not under consideration.”

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Nintendo announced on Tuesday that it has shipped more than 4 million 3DS units worldwide in nine months. That’s more than the number of Wii units Nintendo sold during that console’s first nine months on the market, though Nintendo did announce that it sold more than 4.5 million Wiis in the U.S. alone last year. “One of the strongest software lineups in our history helped Nintendo have a great holiday season and to close 2011 with a full head of steam,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Not only have the new Mario and Zelda titles already broken records, but with strong reviews and satisfied customers sharing their positive experiences, all three are also shaping up to be the latest long-tail titles from Nintendo. Couple that with a massive first- and third party lineup in the first part of the year and the prospects for 2012 are extremely promising.” The 3DS initially had a slow start, but Nintendo’s decision to slash the price of the console helped boost sales almost immediately. The addition of new hit titles, such as Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land and the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D also helped attract new buyers. Nintendo’s full press release follows after the break.

Nintendo 3DS Crosses 4 Million Mark

Driven by Fast-Selling Software Nintendo 3DS Sells More in Its First Nine Months Than Wii Did

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Whether they were on the go or at home, whether they played in 2D on the TV or in glasses-free 3D in their hands, gamers of all ages celebrated the holidays with Mario and Zelda. Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 for the Nintendo 3DS system not only became the fastest-selling titles in the history of their respective franchises when they launched, but they are now also the first Nintendo 3DS titles to sell 1 million units each in the United States. On the console side, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which also broke launch records, became the 45th Wii title to sell more than 1 million units in the United States.

“One of the strongest software lineups in our history helped Nintendo have a great holiday season and to close 2011 with a full head of steam,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Not only have the new Mario and Zelda titles already broken records, but with strong reviews and satisfied customers sharing their positive experiences, all three are also shaping up to be the latest long-tail titles from Nintendo. Couple that with a massive first- and third party lineup in the first part of the year and the prospects for 2012 are extremely promising.”

Nintendo sold more than 12 million total hardware units in the United States in 2011, marking the fifth year in a row that the company has accomplished that feat. This includes more than 4.5 million units of Wii, more than 4 million Nintendo 3DS systems, and more than 3.4 million units of the Nintendo DS family of systems. This brings the installed base for Wii and Nintendo DS to 39 million and more than 51 million, respectively.

With a strong lineup of software on the horizon, including new installments in the Mario Party, Pokémon and Kid Icarus franchises, as well as third-party games such as Resident Evil Revelations from Capcom and METAL GEAR SOLID 3D Snake Eaterfrom Konami for Nintendo 3DS, that momentum should continue into the first quarter of 2012 and beyond.

In addition to the milestones reached by new software, two evergreen Nintendo titles celebrated milestones as 2011 drew to a close. Mario Kart Wii passed 11 million units sold and New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS family crossed 10 million total units sold.

Remember that Wii and Nintendo 3DS feature parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit http://www.nintendo.com/wii or http://www.nintendo.com/3ds.

Sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console trounced the competition in November, nearly doubling PlayStation 3 sales and sales of Nintendo’s Wii console. According to November sales data from leading market research firm The NPD Group, Microsoft sold 1.7 million Xbox 360 consoles in November. While Sony managed unit sales growth of about 70% year-over-year, the company only sold about 900,000 PlayStation 3 consoles last month. Nintendo sold 860,000 Wii consoles, 795,000 portable Nintendo 3DS consoles and 350,000 older Nintendo DS units in November. “This is the fourth consecutive month in which the Xbox 360 has been the top selling hardware system,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement. “The gap between 360 sales and sales of the next best selling platform was the largest we’ve seen since December 2008 when the Nintendo DS was the top selling system.” Total industry sales were up less than 1% to $3.00 billion in November according to NPD, and hardware sales dipped 9% from 2010 to $982.4 million. Software sales were up 15% year-over-year to $1.67 billion but accessory sales dropped 34% to $273.8 million despite strong holiday sales of Microsoft’s Kinect controller. The NPD Group’s list of the 10 best-selling video game titles in November follows below.

Shigeru Miyamoto, the genius behind hit Nintendo games such as The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. 2 and many more, has no intentions of retiring or stepping down from his current position, Nintendo said in a statement Thursday. The comments were made after Wired published an interview in which Miyamoto suggested he was going to retire from his current position to focus on smaller projects and allow a new generation of Nintendo programmers to take the spotlight. “What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position,” Miyamoto told Wired. However, Nintendo said there was a misunderstanding in the interview. ”This is absolutely not true,” a spokeswoman for Nintendo told Reuters. ”There seems to have been a misunderstanding. He has said all along that he wants to train the younger generation. He has no intention of stepping down. Please do not be concerned.”

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Nintendo announced earlier this week that the company kicked off the holiday shopping season with a bang, having seen record-setting sales of its Wii and multiple game titles. Nintendo sold more than 500,000 Wii consoles on Black Friday 2011 alone, making it the console’s biggest Black Friday ever. The company’s newest addition to the Zelda franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, sold 535,000 copies since launching on November 20th to become the fastest-selling Zelda game of all time. Super Mario 3D Land, the first 3D Mario game for the Nintendo 3DS, sold more than 500,000 in two weeks, making it the fastest-selling Mario game of all time. Read on for more.

“What this has been able to do is drive our Nintendo 3DS business in only eight months to surpass the full first year volume of the original DS and we still have the bulk of the holiday to go, and we still have the launch of Mario Kart 7 (out Sunday, Dec. 4) to continue driving our full-year sales on Nintendo 3DS,” Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said in a statement, noting that last week’s 3DS console sales were up 325% over the week prior.

“We know that Black Friday and that entire week is a key selling week and it is important for products like ours to have a jump in momentum and we were fortunate to see that,” Fils-Aime added. “For us, it really was driven by unique and powerful software and what gives us confidence is that we still have more software to launch in the balance of this holiday period.”

Sales of video games and video game hardware remained lackluster in October according to market research giant The NPD Group. Overall industry sales in the U.S. grew just 1% to $1.08 billion last month compared to October 2010. Total hardware sales were up 6% year-over-year to $295.6 million in October, and software sales were up 3% to $621.3 million. Sales of video game accessories in the U.S. dipped 5% to $135.9 million last month. Microsoft’s Xbox showed the most impressive growth among home consoles with unit sales up 20% from last October, while sales of Nintendo’s 3DS/DS line topped portable devices with 25% growth. November numbers should be a bit more impressive ahead of the holidays thanks to holiday sales paired with a number of high-profile launches including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which pulled in a record $400 million in sales during its first 24 hours of availability, and Halo Anniversary, which launches on Tuesday. NPD’s list of the top-10 video game titles follows below.

In 2009, the Nintendo DS generated 70% of all portable gaming revenue in the United States, but in the last two years its share has been devoured by Android and iOS. The two mobile operating systems now account for 58% of all portable gaming revenue in the United States according to Flurry, up from 34% in 2010 and 19% in 2009. Nintendo DS fell from a 70% share in 2009 to a 57% share in 2010 and tanked again this year to an estimated 36% share. Sony’s revenue share slid substantially as well. It fell from an 11% share in 2009, to a 9% share in 2010 to a barely visible 6% share this year. Read on for more.

The data was compiled in a recent blog post by Flurry using its own data and data from The NPD Group, and the figures for 2011 include estimates for November and December of this year. “Combined, iOS and Android game revenue delivered $500 million, $800 million and $1.9 billion over 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively,” the report said. “Recently, no industry has been more impacted by digital distribution than video games. Leading the disruption are iOS and Android devices, whose free and inexpensive games, distributed across a massive installed base of powerful and networked tablet and mobile phone form factors, have already disrupted billions of dollars of game revenue.” So, yes, your impulsive iPhone game purchases are slowly killing Mario.

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Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata recently reiterated that Nintendo will not develop games for Apple’s iPad, iPod and iPhone, despite recent pressure from investors to jump on the iOS bandwagon. “This is absolutely not under consideration,” Iwata told the Japanese news outlet Nikkei following the company’s recent 3DS press conference. “If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.” Several analysts have argued that Nintendo will continue to struggle against mobile gaming platforms that offer a larger selection of free or $0.99 games. Nintendo recently dropped the price of the 3DS to $169.99, which helped increase sales, but the system is still expected to miss sales targets for the year. According to AdriaSang, which translated the Nikkei article, Iwata believes Nintendo’s current business model works and he expects that to be reflected during the holiday shopping season.

[Via The Loop]

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During the Nintendo 3DS Conference in Japan on Tuesday, Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata discussed the company’s plans to boost interest in its 3D portable gaming console. Nintendo will add the ability to record 3D video on the device, which is currently only capable of snapping 3D photos, and will sell a new joystick add-on. Nintendo will also launch a pink 3DS in October in an effort to attract female gamers. But those new options as well as 43 new games, including Super Mario 3D Land, will not be enough to help the company meet its sales expectations according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The analysts collectively estimated that Nintendo may miss its goal 16 million 3DS units sold goal by about 16%. Read on for more.

Reportedly, Nintendo may sell 2.5 million units by March 31st, which marks the halfway point for the company’s fiscal year. Those sales may have been spurred by Nintendo’s decision to drop the price of the console to $179, which consequently resulted in a 260% increase in sales. “[Nintendo] can’t compete with free or $0.99 downloads,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said, comparing the system to the iPhone, iPad and iPod. Pachter estimates Nintendo will sell 10 million units for the fiscal year. “Nintendo should consider embracing social networks, even though it’s going to be a latecomer,” Daiwa SB Investments portfolio manager Koichi Ogawa told Bloomberg. “Even with the price cut, it’s hard to lure consumers as various platforms including the iPhone and iPad are available now. Those people wont use 3DS to play cards or mah-jongg.”

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Sales of video game hardware, software and accessories in the United States continued to slide in August according to new data from NPD Group, again dipping more than 20% compared to the same period last year. Overall industry sales slid 23% to $669.9 million last month from $873.8 million in August 2010. Hardware sales were down 12% from last year to $249.4 million, accessory sales were down just 1% to $134.7 million and software sales plummeted 34% to $264.8 million. ”August 2011 sales saw a decline versus August 2010 in all categories except for portable games hardware,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier in a statement. “In software, the bulk of the decline can be attributed to the shift of the annual Madden release from August to September (8/30 release falls within NPD’s September 2011 reporting period).” Frazier continued, “Even though year to date performance of the new physical portion of the industry is down 5%, more than half of industry sales in this channel are still to be realized in the back four months of the year.  Given the strong release schedule in the coming months, new physical retail sales could still be flat to slightly up once full year sales are tallied.” Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was the best-selling console for the seventh consecutive month in August with 308,000 units sold. NPD’s top-10 list of video game software title sales in the month of August follows below.

Much has been made of the video game console business’ steady decline, and rightfully so; console sales have dropped considerably in recent months. Some attribute the sliding sales to a weakened economy while a minority believe trends are turning toward casual mobile gaming, but market research firm IDC says we shouldn’t be sounding any alarms just yet. In a new report, IDC suggests that console gaming will begin to reverse current downward trends in 2012, with a big-time resurgence to follow in the coming years. “Total console hardware and disc-based software revenues are on track to slide a few percent in 2011 compared to 2010,” Lewis Ward, an IDC research manager, said in a statement. “But prognostications that consoles have peaked as a product category are premature. I expect that the launch of the Wii U, a revamped interactive entertainment console from Microsoft in the 2014 timeframe, and the arrival of Sony’s ‘PS4′ circa 2015 – along with more than a few exclusive, innovative games – will help drive a new wave of console-centric spending in the next several years.” Of course the market could rebound even sooner than that. BGR reported exclusively that Microsoft may be preparing to unveil a new Xbox model as soon as E3 2012, and Sony could be fast-tracking plans for a new PlayStation 4 console as well. The Xbox is now six years old, Sony’s PlayStation 3 is five years old and Nintendo’s Wii is almost five years old as well. As quickly as technology now evolves, it shouldn’t be any mystery that console sales are currently waning. IDC’s press release follows below.

IDC Finds the Demise of Game Consoles Is Greatly Exaggerated

18 Aug 2011

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., August 18, 2011 – Despite recent macroeconomic instability and particularly weak overall video game spending in North America this summer, the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) forecast of the worldwide video game and interactive entertainment console market points to a rebound beginning in 2012, largely driven by new platform releases and rising console penetration and spending in select developing economies.

“Total console hardware and disc-based software revenues are on track to slide a few percent in 2011 compared to 2010,” says Lewis Ward, research manager, Consumer Markets: Gaming, at IDC. “But prognostications that consoles have peaked as a product category are premature. I expect that the launch of the Wii U, a revamped interactive entertainment console from Microsoft in the 2014 timeframe, and the arrival of Sony’s ‘PS4′ circa 2015 – along with more than a few exclusive, innovative games – will help drive a new wave of console-centric spending in the next several years.”

IDC forecasts direct global console hardware and disc software sale revenue will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.6% from 2010 to 2015, reaching $39.7 billion in 2015 with developing economy growth rates about twice those in developed markets. Despite this rebound, the installed base of actively used game consoles won’t keep pace with the number of worldwide households. IDC expects there to be about 257 million active consoles worldwide by 2015, or 12.7% of anticipated households that year, down about 1% when compared to same console penetration figure for 2011. In this sense, it’s possible to conclude that console popularity will slip due to the rise of media tablet gaming, casual, free-to-play/social online PC games, etc.

This IDC study, Worldwide Game and Interactive Entertainment Console Hardware and Software 2011 -2015 Forecast (IDC #229438), assesses and forecasts the demand for, usage of, and revenue associated with video game console hardware and software on a worldwide basis through 2015. It provides a competitive assessment of the leading current-generation console platforms based on survey data, interviews, and other research sources and models next-generation platform releases based on historical precedent and other inputs. Worldwide game console totals are broken down into four regions: North America, Western Europe, Japan, and the rest of the world.

The forecast also shows the PS3 will have the largest active installed base of any game console worldwide by 2015. In this sense, the PS2′s “long tail” may ultimately repeat.

Sony announced on Tuesday that it is lowering the price of its 160GB PlayStation 3 console to $249, down from the console’s original $299 price tag. In addition, Sony will now sell the 320GB version of the PlayStation 3 for $299 instead of $349. The Japanese consumer electronics firm also dropped the price of the system in Japan and in Europe. The move is likely an effort to tackle Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, which has been the best-selling console in the United States for past seven months according to the latest data from The NPD Group. Recent rumors have suggested Sony is already working on the PlayStation 4, which could launch as soon as next year to compete with Nintendo’s Wii U and Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox.

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Nintendo’s recent decision to drop the price of its Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming device looks to have paid off. In the device’s first full week of sales following Nintendo’s price drop, the company sold 215,000 units in Japan alone, where the 3DS now retails for 15,000 yen following its launch at 25,000 yen. Weekly sales of the portable 3D console dipped from 31,826 units to 16,415 in the week following Nintendo’s announcement that the price would soon drop, for obvious reasons. With sales in Japan having exploded by more than 13 times in the week following the 3DS price drop, it looks like the initial high price point may have been a big factor in the 3DS’ slow adoption up to this point. Nintendo lowered the price of its 3DS from $249.99 to $169.99 on August 11th in the U.S., so this week will mark the first full week of sales at the new lower price point here in America.

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U.S. video game industry sales were down 26% in July compared to the same period last year according to new data published by The NPD Group. Hardware sales were down 29% year-over-year to $223 million, video game software sales dipped 17% to $336.2 million and sales of video game accessories were down 8% to $127.8 million. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was the best-selling console in the U.S. for the seventh consecutive month with unit sales of 277,000, though July marked the first time the Xbox saw a year-on-year decline since December 2009. ”There is no getting around the fact that video game sales in the new physical retail channel suffered its lowest month since October 2006,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement. “Despite the very rough month, new physical retail sales are down just 4% year-to-date and based on seasonality trends observed over the last 10 years, which have been remarkably stable year-in, year-out, industry sales in this particular channel are poised to land in the flat to -2% range once the total year is completed.” NPD’s top-10 list of video game software title sales in the month of July follows below.

Image source: Kristen Lanae