Despite high watermarks like Microsoft selling 8 million Kinect accessories in 60 days, as well as more Xbox 360 units than it ever has before, 2010's overall gaming sales shrunk compared with last year.
The NPD Group, which published its December and annual reports for video games in 2010 earlier today, said total video game sales for the year were $18.58 billion. That's compared with sales of $19.66 billion for 2009, and $21.4 billion in 2008.
NPD said the loss can be attributed to both a 13 percent dip in console hardware spending, as well as a 6 percent drop in the sale of new video game software year-on-year. Consumer spending for new and used games, as well as downloadable content also flattened or dropped by one percent, the firm said. Video game accessories, on the other hand, enjoyed a hearty jump at 13 percent above 2009's numbers, as well as sales of $853.2 million for just the month December.