Unfortunately, video game sales continues to spiral downward when compared year over year to 2010. In fact, total sales for August were 23% off the mark from last year. NPD, who compiles the sales statistics, believes that much of August’s slump can be blamed on Madden NFL 12 not releasing until August 30, due to the hold out. On the positive side, price cuts on the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation 3 lead to a hardware sales increase over July, which helped the numbers a bit.
Deus-Ex: Human Revolution was only available for five days in August (NPD’s months are slightly different than ours) and still managed to take the top sales spot. July’s winner, NCAA Football 12, took second place for the month and then we basically fall to older titles that are still selling well: Call of Duty: Black Ops, Cars 2, Just Dance 2,etc.
We’re going to say it again this month, but 2011 is going to bounce back in a huge way and we’re predicting that in September we’ll begin to see improvement. Madden’s sales will count this month and we have some huge titles releasing as well: Gears of War 3, Dead Island, NHL 12 and Star Fox 64 3D. Get out there and play some games, so we can turn this ship around!
Here are the top sellers for August 2011:
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (360, PS3, PC)
- NCAA Football 12 (360, PS3)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, NDS, Wii, PC)
- Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd (NDS, Wii, PS3)
- Cars 2 (NDS, Wii, 360, PS3, PC)
- Just Dance Summer Party (Wii)
- Just Dance 2 (Wii)
- Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC)
- The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)
- Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Wii, 360, PS3)
[via Joystiq]
