WeekeNPD: Gaming’s numbers for July

You know the NPD. They track how well things sell in the business of gaming, but we haven’t been so consistent on telling you about their monthly numbers. Then I thought of a clever headline for them (you can read it above) and decided that from now on monthly NPD numbers would come on the weekends so I could use said headline.

So here they are with commentary and full numbers below: Console sales surged over last year by 12 percent to $313.8 million thanks to (and despite) the price cutting of almost every system out there. However, retail game sales slumped by 8 percent to $403.3 million despite the landing of plenty of major titles in July. This put the overall sales of all things gaming down by percent from last year for a grand total of $846.5 million.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier does note, however, that with the release PC release of StarCraft II, which sold 721,000 units at retail, “PC games and videogame industry sales combined for an increase of 4 percent in revenues as compared to July ’09.”

NPD: Hardware Surges On Strong Xbox 360, But Software Drags [Gamasutra]

Breaking down the actual game sales we see the sports reign supreme for this month with NCAA Football 11 taking the one and two spot on Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively. I’m a little surprised to see Crackdown 2 in the number three slot thanks to the lackluster reviews, but we’ll have to see if it has legs. Mario Galaxy 2 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii are still trucking along as perfect examples of Nintendo’s “evergreen” titles and the a strange jump by Call of Duty back into the top ten occurred, though I doubt its numbers are ever that low sales wise. Also, things with the words Lego and Harry Potter sell well.

1. NCAA Football 11 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360), 368,000
2. NCAA Football 11 (Electronic Arts, PS3), 298,000
3. Crackdown 2 (Microsoft, Xbox 360), 208,800
4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo, Wii), 193,000
5. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Warner Bros Interactive, NDS), 141,700
6. Red Dead Redemption (Take-Two Interactive, Xbox 360)
7. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Warner Bros Interactive, Wii)
8. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (Nintendo, DS)
9. New Super Mario Bros Wii (Nintendo, Wii)
10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard, Xbox 360)

On the console front it seems the new looks for the 360 had one wonders for system sales and propelled it to the front of the class, a seat usually reserved for the DS. The last time it did this was in 2007 with the launch of Halo 3. The PS3 saw some solid growth too, though not enough to move it front of the Wii or DS. The PSP. Well, it’s still around.

1. Xbox 360: 443,500
2. Nintendo DS: 398,400
3. Wii: 253,900
4. PlayStation 3: 214,500
5. PSP: 84,000