It was another less-than-stellar for the gaming industry, but new innovations in gaming accessories may lead to a better 2011. It was another year of declining sales for the gaming industry. “Video games sales fell for the second straight year in 2010, according to a new report by the NPD Group. Sales of gaming hardware, software and accessories totaled $18.6 billion in 2010. That’s a 5.7 percent drop from $19.7 billion in 2009, and a further decline from 2008′s figure of $21.4 billion.” http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/video-game-sales-down-in-2010-but-xbox-360-sets-record/ Console sales in 2010 fell to $6.3 billion, a 12.5 percent decline from 2009. Software sales reached $9.4 billion, a 5.6 percent decline from 2009. There were a few bright spots, however. “Sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 actually rose in 2010 — the only console to show a gain from its 2009 figures. The holidays were particularly good to the Xbox 360. The five-year old console posted its best sales month ever in December with a 1.86 million units sold, a 42 percent increase from December of 2009.” http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/Video-Games-Sales-Fall-in-2010-But-Bright-Spots-Emerge-Report-733945/ The Xbox 360′s rebirth can be mostly attributed to the success of the motion-sensing controller Kinect, which launched in early November. Microsoft says that it sold 8 million Kinect units during the accessory’s first 60 days on the market. “The Kinect and the Playstation’s Move fueled a 13 percent increase in sales of gaming accessories in 2010. PC games also were up slightly in 2010, with a 3 percent increase in sales from 2009. The NPD Group expects that 2011 will likely be kinder to the gaming industry.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703950804575243020491776534.html The report cites the explosion of mobile games and social media-based games as key players in the gaming industry’s future. In the hardware category, NPD said both Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 increased their monthly sales compared with a year earlier, but those gains were eclipsed by a 71% decline in Nintendo's DS sales. The DS, however, was still the best selling platform in April. Overall, hardware sales fell 37% in April to $249.3 million.
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