Despite the release of several high profile games, including
a new entry from one of the largest franchises in the industry, video game retail sales for March are expected to tumble once again.
The NPD Group will release March brick and mortar sales figures Thursday after the market closes. Analysts expect software sales to fall between 8 and 10 percent. One of the major factors they’re citing is the shift of this year’s Easter holiday into April.
Veteran game journalist and Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris 
examines NPD’s moves to limit media access to U.S. video game sales figures, stating NPD “could be undercutting its own relevancy.”
I get why The NPD Group has been clamping down on distribution of its data recently. I really do.
But I’m starting to worry that as the company keeps an eye on its bottom line, it could be undercutting its own relevancy at a time when it’s already under assault.
Gamers went on a buying spree in February, shocking 
analysts and rocketing the video games industry into positive sales territory for the first time in over two years.
Buoyed by an unexpected 10 percent jump in hardware sales and a 22 percent surge in peripherals (led by Microsoft’s record-setting Kinect), video game industry sales are now 4 percent above where they were a year ago year to date, according to the NPD Group.
The video game industry pulled a rabbit out of its 
hat in February – and that rabbit looked a lot like an Xbox 360.
A surprise 10 percent jump in hardware sales and a 22 percent increase in peripheral sales not only led the industry to an increase over the February 2010 numbers, but put it in positive year-over-year country as well, according to data from the NPD Group.
With a weak slate of titles, February is shaping up to be another negative month for the video game industry.
Analysts expect game sales, which will be announced by the NPD Group after the market closes Thursday, to be significantly lower than the 2010 figures, as publishers once again had a lack of new blockbusters in the pipeline.
It has been two years since the video 
game industry has seen positive growth — and from the looks of things, it may not see it in 2011, either.
Game software sales were down 5 percent last month as compared to the same period in 2010, according to figures released today by the NPD Group. Hardware sales were even worse, slumping 8 percent.
2011 isn’t looking much better 
than 2010 or 2009 for retail sales of video games.
Despite comparing with weak numbers from a year ago, game software sales were down 5 percent last month versus 12 months earlier, coming in at $576 million, according to NPD Group, which tracks the industry. Overall, the industry was down 6 percent, dragged lower by continued weakness in the hardware category.
The bad news is video game sales 
continued on their downward trajectory in January. The good news is it was nowhere near as bad as analysts were expecting.
Game sales fell 5 percent last month as compared to the same period in 2010, according to the NPD Group. That’s considerably better than the 11 percent some industry observers had predicted.
After two consistent years of negative growth, investors in the video game industry are hoping for things to start turning around in 2011, but they may have to wait a little longer for that to happen.
Analysts expect software sales in January, which will be announced after the market closes Thursday, to be well off of last year’s pace, as a lack of big titles and the traditional post-holiday slump drag down the retail sector.
For the second year in a row, retail sales were down in the video game industry — the first time it has recorded negative growth in back to back years.
The industry, as a whole, was down 6 percent compared to the 2009 figures, with sales of $18.58 billion. Software sales, which investors consider the best barometer of the industry’s health, were down 6 percent as well to $9.36 billion. (Adding in PC sales, the amount climbed to $10.1 billion, a 5 percent drop from last year.)
Chris Morris: Journalist 