The holiday season can’t get here quickly 
enough for video game publishers.
July sales number for the industry will be released roughly two hours after the market closes Thursday – and analysts expect good news to be in short supply. Consensus is fairly wide this month, but the year over year drop in sales is expected to be between 7.5 percent and 15 percent.
Analysts and industry observers were expecting 
June’s video game sales numbers to be pretty awful. Unfortunately, they were right.
Software sales tumbled 15 percent last month to $531.3 million, according to The NPD Group, which tracks retail sales of video games. A surge in hardware sales, spurred by temporary price cuts to the Xbox 360, salvaged the industry’s overall total, though it was still six percent lower than last year.
June was another crummy month for video game 
sales – just like pretty much every other month this year. But, on the upside, a clearance sale on existing Xbox 360 hardware bumped hardware sales into positive territory.
Total sales for the industry came in at $1.1 billion, 6 percent behind last year’s pace, according to The NPD Group. Software sales, which are the number most people pay the closest attention to, were down 15 percent though, while hardware sales increased 5 percent.
Despite the fact that 2010 has been front-loaded with a plethora of critically acclaimed titles, this is turning out to be an awful year for the video game industry. And it’s likely to get even worse Thursday afternoon.
The NPD Group, which tracks video game retail sales, will release the June numbers roughly two hours after the market closes. Analysts are bracing for the worst – expecting a drop of anywhere from 8 to 15 percent from a year ago.
After a surprising—and staggeringly bad—April, the 
video game industry showed fledgling signs of life in May—but nothing that’s going to cause investors to cheer. Take Two Interactive Software, though, may finally have a hit franchise that will divert investor focus away from “Grand Theft Auto”.
Overall industry sales for the month were down 5 percent to $823.5 million, according to the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales. Software sales, which investors and industry observers track more closely, were up 4 percent, however, to $466.3 million. The software numbers were slightly lower than analyst expectations, which ranged from 5 percent to 11 percent increases.
The good news is video game software sales were up 
4 percent in May. The bad news is people were expecting them to be about twice as high. The OTHER bad news is that video game hardware sales were down 20 percent in May – dragging the industry as a whole down 5 percent compared to the 2009 figures.
While any improvement is a good one, it’s becoming clear that the video game industry is not going to be able to easily shake off its ongoing slump. May was a month loaded with potential blockbusters, including “Red Dead Redemption,” “Alan Wake” and “Super Mario Galaxy 2”.
Sales of video game software and hardware plummeted in April, shocking industry observers who were expecting the numbers to be slightly positive or, worst case, down just slightly. That could mean a rough Friday for video game stocks.
(AP)
On the whole, sales were off 26 percent to $766 million, with software sales (the most closely followed of the numbers) plunging 22 percent to $398.5 million, according to NPD Group, which tracks video game sales. Because April 2009 had relatively light sales (and thus, an easy comparable) industry insiders and investors were hoping to at least tow the line.
Here’s some unwelcome – and unexpected – news. 
Video game sales in April took it on the chin, falling 26 percent compared to 2009 to $766 million. That’s roughly five times worse than the most pessimistic analysts were expecting and the fourth-worst year-over-year decline in the industry’s history.
Software sales, according to NPD Group, were down plunging 22 percent to $398.5 million, while hardware fell 37 percent to just $249.3 million.
Chris Morris: Journalist 