The absence of a blockbuster release and the recession combined to push US video game sales sharply lower last month, market research firm NPD Group said.
US video game sales fell 17 percent last month compared with a year ago to US$1.03 billion, NPD said late on Thursday, and were down 30 percent from sales of US$1.43 billion the previous month.
Hardware sales fell 8 percent year-on-year to US$391.6 million, software sales dropped 23 percent to US$510.7 million and sales of accessories were down 15 percent to US$129.4 million, NPD said.
‘SOFT ON THE SURFACE”
“While April sales might appear soft on the surface, it’s important to remember that April is being compared against a month that realized nearly 50-percent growth over April 2007,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said.
April last year saw the release of hot-selling games Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart.
“While the continued difficult economic environment is a factor to consider,” Frazier said, “video games is the category that consumers tell us they’re least likely to cut their spending on in coming months.”
TOP PLATFORM
Nintendo’s Wii console remained the top-selling game platform last month, but its sales of 340,000 units were down 43.4 percent from March.
Sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 plunged 47 percent last month compared with the previous month to 175,000 units, while Sony’s PlayStation 3 saw sales drop by 41.7 percent to 127,000 units.
Sales of Sony’s PSP handheld console fell 30.9 percent last month to 116,000 units.
Sales of Nintendo’s DS soared last month to 1.04 million units from 563,000 in March on the release of the Nintendo DSi, the latest version of its handheld console.
Sony’s PlayStation 2 also bucked the trend, selling 172,000 units last month, up from 112,000 in March, owing largely to cutting the price to what the NPD’s Frazier called the “budget-friendly price point of 99 dollars.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
A former ASML Holding NV employee is facing a lawsuit in the Netherlands over suspected theft of trade secrets, Dutch public broadcaster NOS said, in the latest breach of the maker of advanced chip-manufacturing equipment. The 43-year-old Russian engineer, who is suspected of stealing documents such as microchip manuals from ASML, is expected to appear at a court in Rotterdam today, NOS reported on Friday. He is accused of multiple violations of the sanctions legislation and has been given a 20-year entry ban by the Dutch government, the report said. The Dutch company makes machines needed to produce high-end chips that power
As South Korea descends into political chaos, its equity market risks falling further behind major tech rival Taiwan, which is basking in the glory of a global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. A near-30 percent surge in Taiwan’s stock benchmark this year, set to be the best since 2009, has already helped spur a historic divergence between Asia’s two tech-dominated markets. The nation’s market capitalization now exceeds South Korea’s by about US$950 billion as the world’s AI frontrunners from Nvidia Corp and Microsoft Corp to OpenAI all increasingly turn to Taiwanese firms for supply. Looking ahead to next year, while both export-oriented economies
RSS