Modern Warfare 2 tops sales chart but industry sales decline by 4%
It was the biggest sales month for the video games industry, but still it suffered a decline in past five years.
The December sales topped previous top December 2008 by 4%. It hit to a total of $5.53 billion. This says The NPD Group, the market tracking firm. Recently it released its report that covered December 2009 and also the entire year.
According to this report, the overall sales of video games ran into a shortage of $20 billion ($19.66 billion), which is 8% decline from last years record of $21.4 billion.
Anita Frazier of NPD said, “December marks just the fourth month of the year where the industry saw an increase over last year. January and February were both up, and since the decline that began in March, only September experienced growth. The big sales this month, particularly on the hardware front, is a positive move for the industry headed into what will hopefully be a recovery year in 2010.”
The blockbuster Modern Warfare 2 hit a milestone in the industry by becoming the top-selling video game of the year. According to the report, the Xbox 360 version sold over 5.8 million copies.
Frazier added, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has become the fourth best-selling game of all time. In fact, three of the top 10 games of all time are Call of Duty games.”
Here are the top list of best selling games of 2009:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision, Nov. 2009, Xbox 360)
Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo, July 2009, Wii)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo, Nov. 2009, Wii)
Wii Fit (Nintendo, May 2008, Wii)
Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo, Oct. 2009, Wii)
Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, April 2008, Wii)
Wii Play (Nintendo, Feb. 2007, Wii)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision, Nov. 2009, PS3)
Halo 3: ODST (Microsoft, Sept. 2009, 360)
Pokemon Platinum Version (Nintendo, March 2009, DS)