May Game Sales Down 10 Percent

May videogame sales were down 10 percent compared to last year with $286 million in sales, according to the NPD Group. That figure was a 27 percent drop from last month. Poor Xbox 360 hardware sales (down 25 percent) and Xbox 360 game sales (down 37 percent) contributed to the lower number. While current generation game sales decreased by $96 million (33 percent), next generation game sales (Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS) increased by only $65 million. PC game sales were up 12 percent to $63 million. Michael Pachter, videogame analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, believes the coming summer months will see continued videogame sales slowdown. The drop in current generation game sales will outpace next gen game sales at least until the launch of Wii and PlayStation 3 in November.

Through May, NPD shows Microsoft has sold 1.7 million Xbox 360s. Pachter believes Microsoft will sell 200,000 to 300,000 hardware units per month going forward. He expects a bigger sales shift in the fall when Microsoft's console has a larger line-up of quality games debuting. Xbox 360 game sales will remain in the $50 million to $60 million range until the fall, according to Pachter.

Xbox 360 game sales for May were lead by "Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter," "Oblivion," and "Fight Night Round 3." Top PlayStation 2 games included "Kingdom Hearts II," "Guitar Hero Bundle," and "MLB 06: The Show." "Major League Baseball 2K6," "X-Men," and "Halo 2" lead Xbox sales. "New Super Mario Bros.," "Brain Age: Train Your Brain," and "GTA: Liberty City Stories" were the top handheld games.

Year-to-date software is down only 2 percent due to a 5 percent decline in console games and a 10 percent increase in PC games. The figure for year-to-date is $1.883 billion compared to 2005's $1.972 billion.