New physical retail sales fall behind in Q3

Digital sales and new payment methods outpaced new physical software retail sales in the US in the third quarter.

According to the NPD Group's US Games Market Dynamics report, consumers spent $1.3 billion on new physical video and PC game software in Q3.

However, a further $1.64 billion was spent on digital game downloads, DLC, social games, mobile games, used games and game rentals.

"New physical retail sales had a rough third quarter," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "Increases in sales from some of these other monetisation methods, and full game and add-on digital downloads in particular, only partially offset the decline seen in the new physical retail channel."

The total spend on hardware, content and accessories for the period was $4.2 billion, around 11 per cent less than Q3 2010.