February sales of video games down by 20%

The industry has been showing signs of trouble for months, and the NPD results for February show that sales are continuing their dangerous decline.

January was a poor month for games, as well, and by no means a good way to start off the year. Now the consumer market research organization, the NPD Group, has revealed another drop for the medium. Sales have plummeted 20% to $1.06 billion, down from $1.33 billion last month (a 34% decrease for sales of games and consoles in January overall). That's a worrysome change.

Software sales are in the worst shape, dipping 24.4% to $464.4 million last month compared with $601.4 million one year prior.

The launch of the PlayStation Vita helped soften the blow, but total console sales still fell by 18% in February. The top ten games from last month comprise 78% of total game sales in terms of units according to the NPD—not a healthy number either, but an improvement over last year's concentration of monthly top tens, which was a soaring 94%.

Listed below are the top-selling US video games for February:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision Blizzard) 

2. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Square Enix) 

3. UFC Undisputed 3 (THQ) 

4. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (38 Studios / Electronic Arts) 

5. Just Dance 3 (Ubisoft) 

6. NBA 2K12 (Take-Two Interactive Software) 

7. Soul Calibur V (Namco Bandai) 

8. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks)

9. Twisted Metal 2012 (Sony) 

10. Battlefield 3 (Electronic Arts)

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