Portable game software sales were off

ideogame sales in the three leading markets — Britain, Japan and the United States — declined eight percent last year to 379.3 million units, according to a report released on Wednesday.

Activision’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” was the top-selling game of the year, meanwhile, despite only being released in November, according to the Top Global Markets report.

Nintendo games grabbed the next four places on the 2009 best-selling list, according to the report, which is compiled using figures from the NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Ltd and Enterbrain Inc.

The Top Global Markets report said videogame sales declined 14 percent in Britain, two percent in Japan and seven percent in the United States last year compared with the previous year.

Console software sales fell by six percent in Britain while portable game software sales were off by 25 percent.

In Japan, console software sales dropped by five percent and portable game software sales fell by one percent.

In the United States, console software sales fell by seven percent while portable game software sales dipped by eight percent.

The report attributed much of the decline to the shrinking PlayStation 2 market, which declined in unit sales by 56 percent in the United States, 67 percent in Britain and by 55 percent in Japan.

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ notched up total sales of 11.86 million units in Britain, Japan and the United States, selling 8.82 million copies in the United States, 237,500 in Japan and 2.80 million in Britain.

The next four top-selling titles were Nintendo’s “Wii Sports Resort,” “New Super Mario Bros. Wii,” “Wii Fit Plus” and “Wii Fit.”

They sold 7.57 million copies, 7.41 million copies, 5.80 million copies and 5.44 million copies respectively in the three markets.

Tags: activision, Britain, call of duty modern warfare, decline, enterbrain, game, game of the year, game software, gfk, global markets, Japan, japan and the united states, new super mario bros, nintendo games, npd group, percent, playstation, playstation 2, previous year, report, software, software sales, sports resort, super mario bros, United States, Wii, wii fit, year

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.