While January was a pretty lackluster month in terms of new game releases for US gamers, sales for the month were incredibly low, far lower than was initially projected. A measly $379.6 million was generated over the entire month from new games sold at retail across all platforms – a 38% drop.
NPD analyst Anita Frasier pointed out that while January 2011 saw many more high profile game releases including Dead Space 2 and LittleBigPlanet 2 than this past month, sales from games that were released during the holiday season were also considerably lower.
As shoppers were not drawn to stores due to new launch activity, this potentially impacted additional software purchases made on impulse.
Looking specifically at software, Modern Warfare 3 unsurprisingly topped the list with Just Dance 3 and Skyrim close behind. When compared to last year, there was a 38 percent decline with $355.9 million in games sales.
As expected, the Xbox 360 continues to rule the US, serving as the top selling console for the sixth straight month in a row. Even still, hardware sales dipped considerably as well, bringing in only $199.5 million of revenue, also a 38% decline over last year.
[Source]
