NBA 2K13 tops another down month at U.S. retail

It was another down month for new video games sales at retail in the United States, though that's nothing new to anyone following the industry. Revenues were down 25% in October compared to the same period last year, bringing in an estimated $755.5 million, according to the NPD Group. The brightest spot of the month was Take 2's basketball game NBA 2K13, which was the top-selling title for the month. NBA 2K13 continues the retro theme begun by 2K11, and it outsold last year's incarnation by 60 percent, undoubtedly in part due to last year's league lockout preventing actual NBA games from being played. Activision, as expected, has another hit with Skylanders Giants, the sequel to last year's Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. While the NPD Group doesn't provide sales figures, it did say that sales were up 160% in its debut month versus the original's debut last year. Even more impressive were the sales of Skylanders toy accessories: The group says that Skylanders accessories sold nearly 4 times as much this month as they had sold during the original game's debut. As always, it is worth noting that the rise of digital sales has been eating away at the retail video game industry. While this month's $755.5 million in revenues was down compared to the same period last year, the group estimates the total was more along the lines of $1.2 billion when factoring in digital sales, subscriptions, rentals, and other related spend on video games in the country. The top ten games sold at U.S. retail in October, with SKUs combined, were as follows: 1. NBA 2K13 2. Resident Evil 6 3. Pokemon Black Version 2 4. Dishonored 5. Pokemon White Version 2 6. Madden NFL 13 7. FIFA Soccer 13 8. Medal of Honor: Warfighter 9. Borderlands 2 10. Skylanders Giants