The videogame industry in February showed again its ability to be recession proof.
As the economy continues to struggle, retail sales of games, hardware and accessories rose 10 percent to $1.47 billion, driven by sales of Nintendo products and Capcom's Street Fighter IV.
Hardware sales were $532.7 million, an 11 percent increase year-on-year. The Nintendo Wii once again led hardware sales with 753K units sold, up from January's 679K. The DS followed with 588K sold.
Xbox 360 enjoyed a year-over-year boost with 391K sold, up 53 percent from a year ago. PS3 sold 276K, down from 281K a year prior, while PSP sold 199K.
"The Xbox 360 realized its biggest non-holiday sales month, save for September 2007, when the Halo 3 release brought in a large group of new owners," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said. "Compared to last month, the PS3 realized the greatest month-over-month unit sales increase of all platforms."
Software was up 9 percent to $733.5 million. Wii Fit topped the charts for another month, although Street Fighter IV sold the most units across the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions with 849K total during the month.
The highly-anticipated PS3 shooter Killzone 2 sold just 323K units, but it released at the very end of the month. March results will show any impact that the game may have had from a software and hardware sales perspective.
"Consumers picked up nearly 20 million units of video game software in February, a 14 percent increase over February 2008," said Frazier. "The average retail price for games is 4 percent lower than last year, which is why the dollar sales increase is not quite keeping in pace with the increase in unit sales."
Revenue from accessories was $207.1 million, up 13 percent.
The top 10 SKUs for February are below. (*Includes, special editions and bundles, but not those bundled with hardware.)
Normal 0Title
Publisher
Platform
Rank
Units
Wii Fit w/ Balance Board
NINTENDO OF AMERICA
WII
1
644K
Street Fighter IV*
CAPCOM USA
360
2
446K
Street Fighter IV*
CAPCOM USA
PS3
3
403K
Wii Play w/ Remote
NINTENDO OF AMERICA
WII
4
386K
Killzone 2
SONY
PS3
5
323K
Wii Mario Kart with wheel
NINTENDO OF AMERICA
WII
6
263K
Call of Duty: World at War*
ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
360
7
193K
Mario Kart DS
NINTENDO OF AMERICA
NDS
8
145K
New Super Mario Bros
NINTENDO OF AMERICA
NDS
9
144K
Guitar HeroWorld Tour*
ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
WII
10
136K