Video game and console manufacturers sing the blues as post-holiday sales slide

After a strong 2009 holiday showing, the gaming industry once again demonstrated that it is not recession-proof. According to a report released by NPD Group, U.S. retail video game software sales fell to $597.9 million, a 12% year over year decline. Leading the pack in video game sales is the New Super Mario Bros for the Wii and Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360 which sold a staggering 572,100 copies in the six days following its late January 26th launch. Hardware sales also took a beating in January with sales reaching a mere $353.7 million, a 21% decrease from  January 2009 and a precipitous drop from the $2.2 billion in sales recorded for December 2009. Nintendo once again claimed the top two hardware spots having sold 465,800 Wii consoles and 422,200 handeld DS units. Microsoft sold 332,800 Xbox 360 consoles in January 2010 and reclaimed the third position over Sony’s Playstation 3 which sold 276,900 units. Bucking the downward trend, sales of accessories rose 2% which is a bit of good news in an otherwise disappointing month.

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