NPD October: DS leading the upsurge in gaming
American hardware sales from October from the NPD group indicate that the trend continues -- video game sales are up, revenue is up, and if this continues, it's going to be a banner year for game sales. With two console launches less than a week away, we're pretty sure the industry will hit that grace note that triggers the confetti, but the victory can't be hung on just the release of the next gen systems. No, shocking as it may be to some, the Nintendo DS is at the heart of this year's rocketing game sales. And for October, we're even happy to share the love with the guys who are usually our mortal enemies -- the PSP fanboys. Last month, a full quarter of the top one hundred games in the U.S. were portable games.
When it came to systems, the show was all the DS, with 360,000 units sold in the U.S. for the month. The PS2 pulled out a strong second with 235,000, and oh! Look! Even the GBA moved more than the poor ol' PSP: 169,000 to 130,000. That was a short-lived sense of camaraderie, but that's okay. We're pretty sure they're going to tell us that we're only on top because of Pokemon anyway ....
