U.S. retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories in the important month of November rose 0.4 percent to $3 billion as sales of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” blew up last year’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” according to market researcher NPD Group.
The results give a mixed picture of the holiday sales period that is a make-or-break time for video game companies.
Hardware sales, which include game consoles and accessories, fell 9 percent from a year earlier to $982.4 million, mainly because last November’s figures were boosted by the launch of Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect motion controller for the Xbox.
Sales of software — that is, of the video games themselves — rose 15 percent to $1.67 billion. That’s much more than the 3 percent increase Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter was expecting.
Associated Press
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