Gap between digital and boxed PC sales narrows
Digital distribution accounts for 48% of units sold in US; only 2.2m units difference between digital and boxed games
The sales gap between digital and boxed PC games narrowed during 2009 in the US, with digital downloads accounting for 48 per cent of unit sales and 36 per cent of revenue sales.
That's according to data from NPD, which revealed that 21.3 million PC games were downloaded digitally during 2009, compared to 23.5 million units sold through High Street and online retail.
Looking at the market share percentage of digital sellers in the US, SteamPowered.com holds the top position, followed by Direct2Drive.com, Blizzard.com, EA.com and WorldofWarcraft.com.
With casual online gaming portals, Bigfishgames.com, which recently passed one billion downloads, has the highest market share, followed by Pogo.com, Gamehouse.com, iWin.com and RealArcade.com.
NPD also noted an increase in iPhone and iPod's as gaming devices from the second to the fourth quarter of 2009 by 30 per cent.