Game unit sales rise in U.S. and U.K., but Japan declines
A joint report by three market researchers shows that video game unit sales rose in the U.S. and United Kingdom in 2008, but sales fell in Japan.
The report from The NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Limited and Enterbrain showed that video game software unit sales in the U.K. market grew fastest by 26 percent, while unit sales in the U.S. rose 15 percent and Japan declined 13 percent. The latter drop was due to a decline in portable software sales. Collectively, unit growth of sales was up 11 percent to 409.9 million games, up from 367.7 million games in 2007. The market researchers did not report sales in dollars.
Japan also suffered due to shrinking PlayStation 2 software sales, which were down on a unit basis 46 percent, according to Enterbrain. DS software sales were also down slighly in Japan in 2008. The Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 saw sales increases in Japan. Highly anticipated titles in Japan this year include Dragon Quest IX for the DS as well as Monster Hunter 3 and Final Fantasy XIII.
