The NPD confirmed what analysts had been predicting, a strong September for the video game industry that is expected to kick off a booming holiday season.
According to the NPD Group, video game sales for september clocked in at just over $750 million, up 38% from 2005’s $555 million, while hardware sales, bolstered by the success of the Nintendo DS Lite, which led all hardware sales for the month, soared 70% to $244 million. Combined, the numbers give the industry overall a $1 billion September.
At $6.4 billion on the year, the industry nears what is expected to be a very successful Q4 ahead of 2005 by 11 percent. Squashing concerns about a transition year between console generations, NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier, in a statement to Gamedailybiz, said, “I had expected it to be a strong software month if only from the sheer strength of the franchises behind some of the new releases, but the breadth of the strength surprised me.”
Games like Saint’s Row, Lego Star Wars II and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon led a field of 15 titles that managed to sell more than 100,000 units. According to Frazier, this is only the start of a successful year, “There is no doubt in my mind that this will be a record year for the industry. The question that remains is, ‘How high can it go?’.”
