NPD: 360 continues to improve

The North American video games hardware market continued its value freefall in July, but Microsoft’s Xbox 360 managed to mirror its ongoing success in the UK to post year-on-year sales increases.

The overall hardware market declined by 37 per cent year-on-year according to NPD’s latest numbers, but Xbox 360 saw sales climb by 0.93 per cent, shifting 202,900 units.

Its sales were not far behind Nintendo’s world-conquering Wii, which notched up 252,500 unit sales in July – though this number is 54.5 per cent down on the same month in 2008.

DS continues to lead the pack, however, with unit sales of 538,900, though this is 11.42 per cent down annually.

Following the Wii’s lead, Sony’s PS3 also suffered year-on-year losses, selling 121,800 units – a decline of 45.84 per cent. PSP sales were down 30.55 per cent at 108,000 units.

Hardware sales have slowed considerably on nearly every platform,” NPD’s Anita Frazier observed. The Xbox 360 is the only console system showing a unit sales increase year-to-date, while the DS has the highest sales of all hardware platforms both for the month, and year-to-date.”