Video Game Sales Down in January

For all the hubbub surrounding the ever-growing popularity of video games – thanks mostly to the emergence of casual games like Farmville – it still wasn’t enough to give video game sales the boost they needed in January. Market researcher NPD recently reported that video game sales fell this past month by 5% compared to the same time last year.

The report was inclusive of not only PC and console games, but also game hardware, systems, and portables. In January of 2010, sales were at $1.22 billion, but by this January, they dropped to $1.16 billion. Hopefully rough starts to the year won’t become a trend for video games; sales in January of 2010 were lower than the year before, as well.

Overall, video game sales have been on a decline, as sales were down 6% on the whole in 2010. But to an extent, the slight dip in sales this past month is to be expected, due to the lack of A-list titles that were released.

Indeed, it wasn’t even a January release that ranked number one in terms of sales last month. Call of Duty: Black Ops took the top spot, with Just Dance 2 coming in second. Dead Space 2, which was the only January release in the top four, came in third.

VentureBeat