Online Enabled Games See Significant Growth In North America

As online-enabled games grow increasingly popular in North America, the NPD group are preparing to track and reveal related data partially to the public.

Last month, the group reported a $4.5 billion expenditure on used games, rentals, subscriptions, digital full game downloads, downloadable content, and mobile game apps. As you’ll note, the majority of those categories are reliant on online activity in some manner, and the group made note of this once again in their delayed sales report for May.

“Another measure of the increasing importance of the digital world is reflected in the percent of sales comprised by online capable games,” NPD analyst, Anita Frazier, revealed. “For May year-to-date, 43% of total software units sold were online capable, as compared to 37% for the same time frame last year.”

On a related note, for the third month in a row, the top-selling item in the “Accessory” category was the Xbox Live 1,600 point card. Sales of video game subscription cards in general were up 12%, compared to May 2009.

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/07/02...north-america/