Top Selling Games of '09

Even though 2009 was a bad year for the US as a whole, financially, the gaming industry has something to celebrate. Last week, tracking firm NPD announced the United States retail console game industry made about $19.66 billion in revenue in 2009, which is down 8% from 2008's $21.4 billion. So what's the good news? December 2009 beat out other month's sales from both 2008 and 2009, and any other month ever. Could that be a sign of good things to come?

Entertainment Software Association president Michael D. Gallagher is looking at it as a positive. "Clearly, 2009 was a tough year for consumers and the national economy. However, the bigger picture is one that underscores the industry’s strength; 2009 and 2008 were the highest grossing years in our industry’s history. Our industry's structure is solid, and I anticipate a strong 2010 with a pipeline full of highly-anticipated titles," he said in a statement released with the study.

Portable hardware is the only aspect of the industry that saw an increase in sales last year (6%). Console hardware saw a drop of 13% with console software down 10% and portable software also down 10%. But NPD analyst Anita Frazier believes the new games on slate for 2010 will help turn things around, "Hopefully, the big increase in the overall install base of hardware systems will bring good things for software sales in 2010."

Speaking of software, NPD also released a top ten list of console games sold in the United States. Nintendo dominated the list with seven of the game (six were for Wii). But Wii didn't make the top spot. Xbox 360 received that honor. The entire list is as follows:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360)


2. Wii Sports Resort (Wii)


3. New Super Mario Brothers (Wii)


4. Wii Fit (Wii)


5. Wii Fit Plus (Wii)


6. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)


7. Wii Play (Wii)


8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PlayStation 3)


9. Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360)


10. Pokemon Platinum Version (NDS)

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