US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

[RaychelSnr]

The NPD monthly report is out and it's ugly for the video game industry. Game industry sales dropped by 26% in the month, which is a huge collapse, driven mostly by hardware's inability to keep selling with consumers -- perhaps that market is close to being tapped out eh? While the report has a lot of negatives, there are some bright spots for sports gaming.

Most notable is NCAA Football 12's spot at the top:

"NPD tips its hat to digital sales, calling their growth "remarkable" and noting growth in this area "combined with a flat to modest decline in new physical sales should result in 2011 showing growth over 2010."

Top of the chart in software sales: NCAA Football 12 (Xbox 360, PS3)."

[yankee4life]

madden 12 will be the leader on september!

[AuburnAlumni]

Re: US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

Well, if it had been known just how "buggy" NCAA has been, it might have been even worse.


That being said, that's a huge drop. Especially when you consider kids are still out of school, etc. You wouldn't think Video game sales would be down in the summer..at least in my opinion.

[Jdoug312]

Re: US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

Hopefully this'll make videogame prices decrease.

[nate1msu]

I think I've spent more hours trying to work around bugs in NCAA than actually playing.

[Wavebird99]

Re: US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

This doesnt mean anything. There were pretty much zero marquee video game titles this summer. Sales will be back to normal during the fall/winter months.

[Clinton56]

yea the quality of the summer titles this year has been low.

[khaliib]

I agree with what Auburn said.
If Gamers had any knowledge that the game was so buggy, the numbers would be just as bad.

Also, consider what games really dropped in July along with NCAA for EA to even try and utilize these sales numbers as possitive.

They were the only "Major" video game the Sporting Community was looking to buy, everyone knows that.
July is about College Football release.

I believe the sales numbers are so bad, is because no "Shooters" have been released.

Come October and November, you'll see a spike in video game sales as many Gamers await the release of the highly anticipated shooters.

Battlefield 3 - Oct 25
COD/MW3 - Nov 8

[ViLLiO]

Re: US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

It seems Tiburon is still celebrating, too.

[SGMRock]

Like others mentioned above nothing in July that was released was any good other than NCAA so what do they expect. I could see if there was some big titles released and they bombed but nothing worth noting came out. Later this year you got Madden 12, FIFA 12, BF3, Modern Warfare 3 that should all hit big numbers.

[franko3219]

Re: US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

I do not think this is a showing of "how good NCAA is", but rather how weak game developing has become. It just seems as though there are way too many fantasy/sci-fi type of games out there (Alpha protocol, and I know some people like them and that is great I have nothing against those people, but why do we only see one or two good realistic type of games? Far Cry used to be fun, haven't seen a new one of those in a long time, GTA only comes out once every 4 to 5 years although RRD helped with the waiting of a new GTA. I see the the upcoming games and all I seem to be excited about are the sports titles because I am a sports fanatic, and then Battlefield 3 and that is pretty much it so far. Maybe it is just because I am a not a teen ager anymore, but a lot of the games just do not appeal to me much anymore.

[chia51]

Re: US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

yea the quality of the summer titles this year has been low.

Like others mentioned above nothing in July that was released was any good other than NCAA so what do they expect. I could see if there was some big titles released and they bombed but nothing worth noting came out. Later this year you got Madden 12, FIFA 12, BF3, Modern Warfare 3 that should all hit big numbers.

This.

NCAA got sales due to the casual football gamer not knowing if the NFL would be here this year. NCAA garnered some of Maddens numbers due to all of the lockout talk for the past 'forever' now.

Sure 'we' knew that Madden was still releasing later, but for Joe Blow 6 year old, they may not have and they wanted a football game and they purchased NCAA.

That's how I see it.

[JayD]

Re: US Video Game Sales Plummet -- NCAA Strongest Game in July

To bad the top selling game was also the buggiest game out there. My copy has already been traded in.

[Profit89]

Digital Sales and PC sales will rise... The new era of gaming

[scottyo60]

I think for every poor month like this you have a month like March where it felt everything in the world (sports wise) was released. I can't remember any new games from April-NCAA 12 that I picked up.