NPD: Gaming finally on the up

After what seems like a prolonged period of decline in the North American video games market, the latest numbers from sales tracker NPD show that the sector enjoyed year-on-year growth in September.

In fact, September 2009 was the second biggest September the NPD has ever recorded, beaten only by September 2007 in which Microsoft released the colossal Halo 3.

However, in unit terms the monthly performance was actually flat compared to the same period last year – the increases are down to a rise in retail prices.

The industry managed a modest increase over September 2008, and generated the second bestselling September on record after 2007 when Halo 3 released and sold over 3m copies that month,” NPD’s Anita Frazier stated.

On a unit sales basis, the industry was flat. The increase in revenues is driven by a rise in average retail prices in all categories with the exception of console hardware in which the average retail price decreased 8 per cent from last September.”