July US video game retail sales drop 26% to 5-year low

Sina Science and technology news Beijing time, August 12, market research organization NPD Group, released in Thursday, the latest report shows that the Microsoft Xbox 360, such as the decline in demand for game consoles, the July U.S. video game industry retail sales fell by 26% Year-on-year. Sales of gaming hardware, software and peripherals in the US video game industry totaled $707.7 million trillion, the lowest level of retail sales since October 2006, with retail sales at $961.3 million a year earlier, NPD said in the report.　　Sales of games hardware fell 29% and software retail sales fell 30%, according to NPD data. While the Xbox 360 is still the best-selling game player of the July, sales fell to 277,000 units, down 37.6% from a year earlier, the month when Xbox 360 sales fell for the first time since December 2009. "This is mainly due to the fact that the Xbox 360 was Anita Flazere over the same period last year, with the Xbox 360 selling the most in 2010, outside the November and December holidays," said Anita Frazier, NPD analyst. "Last July, Microsoft had a big increase in sales of its new Xbox 360 after the sale of the old game consoles." Flazere says consumers are actually spending more on content, just to buy mobile games, social games, and so on. "We have seen significant growth in sales in these areas," she said. "Sony said in a statement earlier that the PS3 game-sense peripherals move grew 18% year-on-year in July. According to NPD analysts, the July sales of Nintendo DS and 3DS were "roughly flat last year", while sales of all hardware platforms fell last month. Since Friday, Nintendo has started to cut its price by 32% in the United States to 3DS, the cost of which is 169.99 U.S. dollars. (Xuan Chen)