Video Game Sales Hammered Again In November (TTWO)(ERTS)(SNE)(MSFT)

The holiday shopping season and price cuts are not helping video game sales. November figures from industry research firm NPD show sales of software and consoles in the US dropped almost 8% to $2.7 billion.

The Nintendo Wii picked up some of its lost momentum. Its sales figures in October were unusually poor for the market leader. In November, the company sold 1.26 million Wii consoles.

The Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox 360 sold 819,500 million units followed by the Sony (NYSE:SNE) PS3 at 710,400. Price cuts made by the companies two months ago do not seem to be stimulating demand, but they may have hurt margins.

Software sales were helped by record shipments of the new “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2” game. But, weak sales and a poor forecast from Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ:TTWO) and very modest earnings from the top video game company Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) highlight the fact that video game sales have not recovered beyond the success of one or two blockbuster games.

This holiday selling season is the only chance that the video game industry has to recover from its worst year in memory and that recovery did not materialize in November.

Douglas A. McIntyre