The latest set of NPD figures have been released, showing that December 2009 was the biggest month on record for the US retail console business as sales rose four per cent year-on-year to $5.53 billion.
"The videogame industry experienced its biggest sales month ever, besting last December by 4%,” said NPD's Anita Frazier. “It wasn't enough, though, to compensate for the sales decline throughout the year, and so full-year sales came in 8% below last year's record-setting revenues."
Sales of videogames, which includes portable and console hardware, software and accessories, generated revenues of close to $19.66 billion during 2009, compared to $21.4 billion in 2008. The ten bestselling console and PC titles of last year can be found here.
Nintendo’s Wii and DS performed extremely well during December, more than doubling the units Xbox 360 and PS3 sold. PlayStation 3 also sold more than Xbox 360 for the month, but only just. Full monthly hardware sales data can be found here.
On the software front, Nintendo titles dominated the monthly console top ten, taking six places. Full monthly software sales data can be found here.
"December marks just the fourth month of the year where the industry saw an increase over last year. January and February were both up, and since the decline that began in March, only September experienced growth. The big sales this month, particularly on the hardware front, is a positive move for the industry headed into what will hopefully be a recovery year in 2010."