Videogame sale declines as the holiday season begins

Videogame sale declines as the holiday season begins

Ironically, the launch of the Xbox 360 gaming console from the software giant Microsoft has somewhat led to the downfall in the sales of the videogame titles in the market. The videogame industry saw software sales decline from 2004 levels for a third straight month in November as the launch of this next generation gaming console led to consumers waiting for getting their hands on it and buy content for it.

U.S. video-game sales have plunged around 18% compared to last year with business worth around USD 700 million in November. The market research firm NPD Group revealed these figures. However, the hardware segment of the market including the sales of consoles has seen an improvement of around 10 percent to about $456 million over November 2004. This figure also includes accessories for these gaming consoles.

The overall market saw a decline of around 9% to touch revenues of $1.3 billion last month. Market experts believe that these figures are expected considering the huge rush of sales of games like “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” and “Halo 2″ last year. This year has not seen that kind of rush for any new game released in the market. Even the ID Software’s Quake 4 failed to generate any buzz in the market.

Moreover, with Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Revolution expected to come out in the next couple of months, the trend is expected to continue as gamers are delaying their decisions to purchase new consoles and content for them.