As expected video game sales slowed in October in anticipation of the next gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony. NPD just released their data on video game sales for October.
September was a hot month thanks to the edition of Grand Theft Auto Five and two new Pokemon titles for the Nintendo DS. According to NPD and the Wall Street Journal, October continued with some momentum from those titles but sales were slower.
Hardware sales, such as consoles, fell 8% to $171.7 million. This is directly attributed to the two new systems that launch within the next 7 days. The Sony PlayStation 4 launched this morning and the Xbox One launches next Friday.
Game Stop, Best Buy and even Target tried driving video game software sales with special deals. This past Sunday, directly in front of the launch of the PlayStation 4, Target offered a buy two get one free sale on all video games with no restrictions.
In October the top game was GTA V, followed by Ubisoft Entertainment’s “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” pirate adventure game, which was released Oct. 29 alongside Take-Two’s wrestling entertainment game, “WWE 2K14,” which ranked third.
“Growth in video game software sales over the last few months has reversed negative year-to-date trends,” Liam Callahan an analyst with NPD said. “With the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One, we hope to see positive trends over November and December which would lead to an increase in software sales for the year.”
