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August NPD: Deus Ex Comes Out On Top In Depressing Month For Game Sales
Remember last month? Remember how very few worthwhile games were released? Well, if you needed a reminder, all you need to do is look over the depressing numbers coming out of this month's NPD sales data.
According to NPD, overall retail sales for August are down a huge 23 percent. The only category where sales increased compared to August 2010 was portable hardware, thanks to the Nintendo 3DS price drop. Here are the top 10 games for the month:
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (360, PS3, PC)
- NCAA Football 12 (360, PS3)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, DS, Wii, PC)
- Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd (DS, Wii, PS3)
- Cars 2 (NDS, Wii, 360, PS3, PC)
- Just Dance Summer Party (Wii)
- Just Dance 2 (Wii)
- Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Wii, 360, DS, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC)
- The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)
- Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Wii, 360, PS3)
On the hardware side, the Xbox 360 appears to have come out on top with 308,000 sales. Nintendo sold 235,000 3DS units, about 185,000 of which sold after the price cut. Nintendo says this is a 260 percent increase for its struggling new handheld, but the Wii and regular DS did not fare as well with 190,000 and 165,000 sales respectively. We're still waiting on numbers for Sony, but the publisher did say that PS3 sales were up for the final two weeks of the month thanks to a $50 price cut.
If that dismal list of titles has you a little bummed out, don't be too worried. NPD analyst Anita Frazier says the bulk of the software decline, at least, is due to Madden 2012, which was released August 30 this year. That falls into the September NPD results rather than the August spot it normally dominates. Frazier believes sales will bounce back in September thanks to a much greater number and variety of games being released.
[via NeoGAF]
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