NPD says total US games market was over $1bn in April

The money generated from overall game sales in the US during April has been estimated at a whopping $1bn.

This figure from The NPD Group includes sales of hardware, accessories, new and used physical games at retail, rentals, digital downloads, add-on content, subscriptions, mobile games and social network titles.

It’s the first time the entire US games market has been taken into account during a single month. Previously, the data only included sales of boxed product.

Prototype 2 was the best-selling game in the US last month, and boxed sales made up $630.4m. Read the April 2012 NPD sales news story for more specific details.

NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier said: I think the new physical retail content sales reflect a very light release schedule in terms of the amount of compelling new games.

Last April, the top seven titles outsold the top-selling title this year, and, simply stated, there were notably fewer new market introductions. I think it’s a simple as that because when we see compelling content come into the market, the games are still selling as well as ever – we just saw a lot less this April as compared to last.

For some insight into digital purchasing of content, we can look at the performance of points and subscription cards which were up 75 per cent in units over last April. These could very well have been last minute additions to Easter baskets early in the month."