- total industry sales were $516.5 million, down 28 percent
- hardware down 39 percent to $138.9 million
- software down 32 percent to $255.4 million
- including PC brings the software total $335.2 million (down 16 percent)

- Nintendo 3DS: 113.5K (+17%)

"All hardware platforms, save the 3DS, saw a decline in unit sales versus last year. The Nintendo DS, however, did realize a 35% lift over April 2012, catalyzed by the May 20th price reduction on the DSi and DSi XL. Even with the price drop on the DS platform, 3DS sales realized an increase of 17% over last May.

These sales figures represent new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories which account for roughly 50-60 percent of the total consumer spend on games. When you consider our preliminary estimate for other physical format sales such as used and rentals at $155 million, and our estimate for digital format sales including full game and add-on content downloads including microtransactions, subscriptions, mobile apps and the consumer spend on social network games at $420 million, we would estimate the total consumer spend in May to be $1.17B. Our final assessment of the consumer spend on these areas outside of new physical retail sales will be reported in September in our Q2 Games Market Dynamics: U.S. report.

YTD 2012, there have been 27 percent fewer new software title introductions into retail which we believe is a big part of the softness we're seeing in May sales. A title obviously continues to see sales beyond its launch month, so there is a longer term impact from a narrower array of available new content. That said, we saw some exciting content at E3 that will come to market in the latter part of the year, and when great content comes to market, gamers are still showing up at the stores to buy it.

The Accessory category continues to perform well due to increased video game card sales, up 74% from last May, as well as the continued success of Skylanders. - NPD's Anita Frazier

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