US market hit record levels in '05 as handheld sales boomed

The latest data from market information firm NPD has revealed that overall sales videogame hardware and software in the USA reached record levels in 2005, hitting $10.5 billion and passing out the previous record year, 2002.

Sales were up by six per cent over 2004, and were almost two per cent ahead of 2002's tally of $10.3 billion, which came in the wake of the launch of the GameCube and Xbox consoles at the tail end of 2001.

However, there was a marked decline in sales of home console hardware and software, with those two market segments falling by three per cent and twelve per cent respectively as buyers held out for the launch of next-generation systems.

Combined unit sales of the current generation consoles - PS2, Xbox and Cube - dropped by over 19 per cent during the year, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter told Reuters.

The shortfall was more than made up by the success of Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP handheld consoles, with the handheld sector as a whole witnessing a 42 per cent rise in sales of software.

However, it wasn't just the new handheld platforms that did well. The Game Boy Advance continued to experience strong software sales, perhaps aided by the GBA backwards compatibility of the Nintendo DS, and over half of all handheld software sold was for the venerable platform.

NPD's figures do not include sales of PC software or hardware, and are thought to cover around two thirds of the entire software market in the US.