July U.S. Sales See NCAA Football DominateJuly U.S. Sales See NCAA Football Dominate

North American video game sales statistics for June 2005 have now been made available to analysts, and according to reports, the NPD Group-sourced statistics show that the number one selling title of the month was Electronic Arts' college-themed football title NCAA Football 06 on PlayStation 2, selling a dominant 600,000 copies, with the Xbox version at number two, albeit with almost half as many sales. According to analyst reports, overall software sales were down by around 9 percent on July 2004, despite previous months managing to average above the previous year’s results by about the same percentage. Xbox software sales were down 8 percent, PlayStation 2 software sales down 18 percent and GameCube game sales down 32 percent on 2004. However, there was at least one relatively unexpected result in the top ten, with the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack being the third-best selling title with nearly 200,000 units sold, though grossing less than other games at a $20 price point – despite merely being a collection of nine multiplayer maps, all of which are due to be available via Xbox Live at a later date. Ranging further down the top-sellers, Nintendo's Pokemon Emerald continues to do well for the Game Boy Advance, with the latest in the long-running franchise selling just over 130,000 copies for the month. Activision's Fantastic Four game tie-in was the second-best selling PlayStation 2 title for the month, coming in at just over 100,000 copies sold, with THQ's Destroy All Humans only just behind it. Before being pulled from shelves, the Xbox SKU of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas racked up impressive sales of over 90,000. Finally, the top PSP titles sneaked into the overall top ten by sales, with Rockstar's Midnight Club 3 sneaking over 75,000 units for the somewhat slow month, and Konami’s critically questioned first person shoot ‘em-up Coded Arms only just behind it. The highest-selling Nintendo DS title was Kirby: Canvas Curse, at just under 50,000 units.