According to The NPD Group, strong growth in hardware sales offset declines in software sales in July, while accessory sales had modest growth, leading to an increase of 16 percent in overall new physical video game sales compared to July of last year.
Hardware sales doubled in July compared to the same month last year, stemming from growth in eighth generation console sales, which offset declines in seventh generation console and portable hardware. When combining life-to-date sales of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 (PS4) after nine months, and comparing them to the combined totals of nine months’ worth of sales for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (PS3), sales of the newest consoles are larger than the prior generation by close to 80 percent.
For software and accessories, declines seen in the former were caused by reduced sales for new launches, as well as the decline in seventh generation software not entirely being offset by eighth generation sales. Accessory spending, meanwhile, rose in July, due in part to a 30-percent increase in sales for gamepads, largely due to greater spending on first party controllers purchased with eighth generation hardware.
