NPD: 2007 U.S. Game Industry Growth Up 43% To $17.9 Billion

Alongside the December NPD results, full results for the U.S. game market in 2007 were revealed, with over 40 percent growth for the year to what NPD's Anita Frazier called a "record-shattering" $17.94 billion. Noted Frazier, "Each category under the video games industry umbrella reached their own 'personal bests' in terms of annual sales," adding, "While I wouldn't count on similar growth in 2008, I would expect to see 2008 increase over 2007, with more growth (proportionately) coming from software sales. While we will continue to see strong hardware sales, particularly if prices come down again, the spotlight now turns from hardware to software." 2007 Hardware Turning to full year results, the Wii and DS handily outpaced the rest of the platforms this year, with total industry spending up 54% to $7.04 billion. The full 2007 console sales follow: Nintendo DS - 8.5 million Wii - 6.29 million Xbox 360 - 4.62 million PlayStation 2 - 3.97 million PSP - 3.82 million PlayStation 3 - 2.56 million "Nintendo has certainly been the belle of the hardware ball this year," added Frazier, "capturing the top two spots for hardware units sales for the year with the DS followed by the Wii. The DS has driven portable gaming to a new level, and for the second year in a row, the DS has been the top-selling hardware platform." This brings the North American life to date totals to: PlayStation 2 - 41.12 million Nintendo DS - 17.65 million PSP - 10.47 million Xbox 360 - 9.15 million Wii - 7.38 million PlayStation 3 - 3.25 million 2007 Software NPD has also revealed the top ten selling games for all of 2007, with Halo 3 remaining the best seller. Said Frazier, "Halo 3 captured the top-spot in single-game sales for the year selling 4.8 million units at retail. This performance certainly puts it among the elite in gaming history with performance similar to that of GTA: Vice City in 2002, and GTA: San Andreas and Halo 2 in 2004." The annual top 10 is as follows: 1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) - 4.82 million 2. Wii Play w/remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.12 million 3. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360, Activision) - 3.04 million 4. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock w/guitar (PlayStation 2, Neversoft/Budcat/Activision) 2.72 million 5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 2.52 million 6. Pokemon Diamond (DS, Nintendo) - 2.48 million 7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2, Electronic Arts) - 1.90 million 8. Guitar Hero II w/guitar (PS2, Activision) - 1.89 million 9. Assassin's Creed (Xbox 360, Ubisoft) - 1.87 million 10. Mario Party 8 (Wii, Nintendo) - 1.82 million With the 2006 release of Guitar Hero II reappearing on the 2007 list, Frazier said, "One has to recognize the tremendous success of the Guitar Hero franchise. Guitar Hero games sold over $820 million at U.S. retail which is a record for any single franchise in any one year." She added, though, "In a year of records, we'd be remiss not to talk about Mario. Mario was the second-best selling video games property for the year and remains the historically best-selling property in the video games industry." Accessories Finally, NPD showed that game accessories were up 37% to $621.6 million. Said Frazier, "All those hardware sales greatly helped the accessories category to realize a 52% increase over last years' sales. The Wii remote and the Wii Nunchuk combined for over 8.5 million in units sales last year, capturing the top two spots in accessories sales." "A lot of folks are curious about the performance of the HD-DVD add-on from Microsoft," she said. "Life-to-date, 316K units of that accessory have been sold, representing a 3.5% attach rate to hardware sales."