WII U Sales Uptick

OCT. 30, 2013 • Since Nintendo Co. Ltd. reduced the price of the Wii U by $50 on September 20 in North America and Europe Wii U sales have increased. For the quarter ending on September 30, units sold totaled 300,000, up 88% from the 160,000 moved during the preceding quarter. At 460,000 units sold through the first two quarters of Nintendo’s fiscal year, the gamemaker is well short of its forecast of selling 9 million Wii Us by March 31. On total sales of.....

Nintendo 3DS Leads U.S. Console Sales

JULY 19, 2013 • For the second month in a row the Nintendo 3DS was the top selling console in the U.S. According to the NPD Group, the handheld moved 225,000 units in the month of June. The Xbox 360 was second at 145,000 units. Much of the steam behind the 3DS’ showing came as a result of having three titles in the Top 10. Animal Crossing New Leaf moved 505,000 units, with 20% of the total sold through Nintendo’s online eShop. Also propelling the han.....

Xbox 360 Turns In Strong Performance

JAN. 11, 2013 • Riding an undercover $50 price reduction at retail, Microsoft reported that Xbox 360 sales reached a total of 1.4 million units sold during the month of December in the U.S. (Microsoft cited NPD Group data). That performance marks the 24th straight month the console has topped sales charts. Microsoft also claimed that seven of the Top 10 games for the month were Xbox 360 titles. Consumers spent more than $1.27 billion on Xbox 360 hardware, games .....

PlayStation 2 Production Ends

JAN. 4, 2013 • On Dec. 28, Famitsu reported that Sony Computer Entertainment had ceased shipping PlayStation 2s to Japanese retailers. All existing inventory in-channel would be sold off until no more remained. No other territories were mentioned in the report, and Sony has remained mum on furt.....

Call of Duty: Black Ops II Reaches $1 Billion

DEC. 5, 2012 • Call of Duty: Black Ops II is keeping up with past installments in the franchise. Activision Blizzard reports that the action title took in $1 billion in worldwide revenue within 15 days. It took Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 a total of 16 days to accomplish the same milestone last year. By comparison, Call of Duty: Black Ops took 42 days to reach $1 billion in sales in 2010, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) needed 64 days. .....

Video Game Sales Flat at GameStop

JAN. 9, 2012 • For the nine week period ending Dec. 31, retailer GameStop reported that overall sales were flat at $3.02 billion, compared to the same period last year. Game software sales did grow to 10% to $1.47 billion, but game hardware sales dropped 20%. Other growth areas included digital sales (60%), and used games (3.5%). In the U.K., music, video and game retailer HMV saw its total sales for the same nine week period drop 9.8%. While DVD sales remained .....

Japan Game Market Shrinks

JAN. 5, 2012 • According to Japanese publisher Enterbrain, the Japan game market contracted ¥459 billion ($5.9 billion), or 8%. The contraction is the fourth such year-on-year drop in a row.  Hardware sales, however, grew 2.4% to ¥179 billion ($2.3 billion). .....