Weak Game Sales Continue At Toys R Us

In its third quarter financial results released Friday, retailer Toys R Us reported a 14.5 percent year-over-year drop in sales for its Entertainment category, which is made up primarily of video game software and hardware. The company attributed the drop to "overall softness across the video game industry", and said that were it not for the Entertainment category, it's sales for the quarter ending last October would have increased by 0.9 percent. As a result of the shrinking Entertainment category, the New Jersey-based toy retailer's overall sales for the quarter fell slightly to $2.7 billion from $2.72 billion during the same three-month period last year.  Toys R Us has seen a slowdown in its Entertainment offerings for several quarters in a row now. In its second quarter for 2011, it experienced a 13 percent year-over-year decrease in sales for the category. And in Q3 2010, the company said Entertainment was the weakest of all its categories with a 15 percent year-over-year drop -- a noticeable difference from its 2008 fortunes, when video games sales, particularly for Wii, helped boost Toys R Us' profits.