US Video Game Sales Down 21% In December

The improvement in holiday consumer sales did not help the video game industry. In December, total sales dropped 21% to $3.99 billion. Hardware sales were off by 28% to $1.32 billion. Software sales were down 14%. The research firm blamed the fact that some of the gaming console designs are old. The other, more ominous reason, NPD believes, is that more games are played on smartphones. What the consumer pays for this set of games is usually lower that traditional software