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U.S. Video Game Sales Up 15.5% in April

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lots-of-people-in-tamriel dept.

kukyfrope writes "According to The NPD Group, game sales are up 15.5% for April 2006 thanks to strong PS2 sales, Xbox 360 availability and the release of popular titles such as Kingdom Hearts II, Oblivion and Tomb Raider: Legend. GameDaily BIZ talks in-depth with analysts Michael Pachter (WMS) and Anita Frazier (NPD) on the current trends of the industry and whether this last month was just a fluke or an upswing for the industry. 'We are completely baffled by the sales trend reversal for current generation software,' said Pachter."

5 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Xbox 360 by Erwos · · Score: 3, Informative

    The answer seems clear to me: the huge jump in Xbox 360 sales is starting to drive software sales again. The 360 is finally the best-selling console, and consumers are buying new games for it. If there's continued demand for the 360 (and I doubt they've hit anything near saturation yet), game sales should keep on going up.

    We'll see.

    -Erwos

    --
    Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
    1. Re:Xbox 360 by Erwos · · Score: 2, Informative

      I guess you don't understand that you linked to the March sales stats, do you? April's are much different.

      -Erwos

      --
      Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
    2. Re:Xbox 360 by joshsisk · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uhhhh.... this story is about APRIL. The link you posted is about March.

      The April Charts look a bit different.

    3. Re:Xbox 360 by Serapth · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is true that the 100,000 or so extra Xbox 360's sold probably do mean another 150,000 or so games added to the tally for the month too. But from MS's point of view, that's really got to be a pretty disappointing number.

      Not really sure where you learned math, but wasntit 295,000 units sold. On top of that, even if it was only 100,000 units, the attach rate with the 360 is close to 4 games per unit. That adds up closer to 400,000 extra games sold using the 100,000 number and 1.18 million games sold using the 295K number. Neither should cause Microsoft to lose sleep. Plus, these numbers were from April, before Sony shot themselves multiple times in the foot. I imagine Microsoft staff are sleeping pretty soundly these days.

      Kinda kills earlier analyst comments that "The 360 is bad for the industry" as an 15.5% rise in sales sounds like a pretty damned good thing for the industry. Although Kingdom Hearts2 really does need to get the credit it deserves.

  2. Good games sell... duh! by binaryspiral · · Score: 2, Informative

    So if you make some good games - people buy them. Lots of people buy them and sales go up?

    Hrm.. interesting. Why hasn't anyone thought of that before?