All USA Hardware Sales Down

The July NPD figures are in for hardware sales in the USA and something has gone wrong. For some reason people in the United States are not buying as many systems as they did the previous month. We blame the summer and all its sunshine and all its going to the beach or the park. Other people blame the fact that everybody and their dog already owns a video game system. Yet other people are using the phrase 'Credit Crunch' and postulating that losing your house and your pension plan or buying an Xbox 360 might not be the most difficult decision you've ever had to make.

Now, here's an interesting one though: despite console hardware sales being down across the board and all the platform holders constantly telling us about 'value packs' and 'price cuts' the US hardware sales figures in cash saw a year-on-year 17% rise to $446.9 million (£224m). Last July really did suck for sales.

Okay, of note is that July this year saw the PS3 move past the 5 million units sold in the USA, always a nice round figure to break. It does, however, remain in the tail-pipe fumes of the Wii's 11 million units.

Each of the platform holders has responded to the figures in incredibly positive mode, which is nice; it's good to see that everybody can find their own personal upsides going forward 24/7 out of the box year-on-year... as it were.

According to Microsoft, "The NPD Group issued its July 2008 sales data today showing Xbox 360 as the current generation leader in consumer spend, game sales and software attach rate."

According to Sony, "Our year-to-date sales growth of 99% for the PS3 reaffirms that consumers are indeed embracing PS3 as their entertainment hub-of-choice with its feature-rich offerings like Blu-ray and our recently announced video delivery service."

According to Nintendo, "Nintendo products kept people entertained in July, whether they wanted to get fit, rock out or just play around. According to the independent NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States, Nintendo DS and Wii™ again claimed the top two hardware spots for July, with more than 608,000 DS units and more than 555,000 Wii units sold."

We, like everybody else are super-excited by these uber-awesome responses. Well done everybody.

The figures are:

• Nintendo DS: 608,400 (783,000)
• Wii: 555,000 (666,700)
• PlayStation 3: 224,900 (405,500)
• PlayStation Portable: 221,700 (337,400)
• Xbox 360: 204,800 (219,800)
• PlayStation 2: 155,000 (188,000)

Just awesome all round, if, well, down on last month across the board.