US Stats | NPD Release USA 2003 Sales

On the hardware scene, home systems dropped 27% in dollar value whilst portable hardware saw a massive increase of 54%. The figures show a $750 million dollar value, up from $490 million in 2002, most of which can be contributed to the GBA and GBA: SP.

Richard Ow, senior game analyst for NPD predicts, "Since a majority of the industry's growth comes from software sales, and because there are plenty of highly anticipated software titles across all platforms in 2004, we are expecting to see impressive sales figures," explained Mr. Ow. "However, with the continued price gouging of both hardware and software categories, the industry's sales will be hard pressed to surpass 2003 through the remainder of the current hardware platform's life cycles."

The total software sales rankings for 2003 are as follows, note the total absence of XBOX titles. For the GameCube things look very good indeed. Two titles in the top 10 is not bad return for a year that saw industry