Consoles and accessories help July sales to modest growth - NPD

The NPD results for July are in and show that the new consoles and accessory sales helped to push totals above those seen in July 2013, despite a drop in software sales.

"Similar to the pattern seen in seven out of the last nine months, strong growth in hardware sales offset declines in software sales in July 2014 while accessory sales had modest growth, leading to an increase of 16 per cent in overall new physical video game sales compared to July 2013," said NPD analyst Liam Callahan.

That rise in accessory sales was across three types of device, gamepads, interactive gaming toys and headsets/headphones. Again, the new consoles were a major factor here with gamers picking up extra pads for their machines.

Software sales were down, continuing the recent trend, and the top ten games in July 2014 actually represented 20 per cent less unit volume than seen in the same period last year.

"Two factors caused declines seen in July 2014 software sales: reduced sales for new launches, and the decline in seventh generation software not entirely being offset by eighth generation sales," commented Callahan.

"When comparing the increase in eighth generation sales over the decline in seventh generation sales, the net decrease was $20.1 million"

"When comparing the increase in eighth generation sales over the decline in seventh generation sales, the net decrease was $20.1 million."

SCEA noted that this was the seventh month running that PlayStation 4 led in console and software sales, with its games accounting for over half of total next-gen game sales.

Meanwhile Nintendo saw Mario Kart 8 pass the 1 million sales milestone in the US; the game is only the second Wii U title to do so.

"Through the first seven months of 2014, total sales of Wii U hardware and software have increased by nearly 60 per cent and more than 135 per cent, respectively, over the same period in 2013," said Nintendo in a statement.

"Four SKUs for the 3DS would make the top ten software list when ranked on an SKU basis: 3DS Tomodachi Life, 3DS Pokemon Y, 3DS Pokemon X, and 3DS Mario Kart 7. With the addition of Wii U Mario Kart 8, five of the top ten SKUs this month were published by Nintendo and helped drive Nintendo into the top video game publisher spot for July 2014," added Callahan.