No one had real high expectations for last month’s 
video game sales. And that’s probably a good thing, since it turned out to be the worst August in three years.
Software sales fell 14 percent last month to $403.5 million, according to The NPD Group – more than twice as much as some Wall St. analysts were expecting. Hardware sales, meanwhile, were 5 percent below 2009’s level, at $282.9 million – and the Wii had its worst sales month since the system’s launch.
Video game publishers aren’t fooling themselves. They
know August is going to be the latest in a string of awful months for the industry.
Sales numbers will be released roughly two hours after the market closes Thursday – and they’re expected to be grim. Michael Pachter, managing director of Wedbush Securities, predicts software sales will drop 6 percent compared to 2009 to $445 million. Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets is expecting things to be even worse – forecasting a 10-15 percent decline.
Video game sales weren’t quite as bad as some analysts were 
expecting in July, but the industry once again failed to match its performance of last year.
Software sales fell 8 percent last month to $403.3 million, according to the NPD Group. Hardware sales, as expected, proved the bright spot and were higher for the second month in a row, surging 12 percent, but it wasn’t enough to save the overall industry from another month of negative year-over-year growth. On the whole, the games industry was 1 percent lower than last year.
Those hoping the video game industry could turn 
around its fortunes in July got their wishes – sort of. Sales of video game software were down 8 percent last month to $403.3 million. The industry as a whole was off 1 percent to $846.5 million.
Those numbers, however, did not include sales of “Starcraft II,” which was a PC-exclusive title. (NPD’s monthly numbers only track console sales.) Combined sales of PC and console games were actually up 4 percent over the 2009 numbers.
You don’t have to be a student of the video game
industry to know the Wii is king of the hill, but the company is now underlining just how secure it is in its reign.
Nintendo announced Tuesday that it has now sold 30 million Wiis in the U.S. alone. That milestone comes just 45 months after the device went on sale. To put that into perspective, the PlayStation 2, the industry’s best selling home console, has sold more than 50 million units – but took over eight years to do so.
Chris Morris: Journalist 