- 25 percent drop in total industry sales to $755.55 million
- software sank 25 percent to $451.8 million
- hardware fell 37 percent to $187.3 million
- accessories rose five percent to $135.6 million
- entire retail spend is only around 50 percent of the total consumer spend on games
- NBA 2K13 outsold last year's version by 60 percent in both dollars and units.

Liam Callahan, NPD industry analyst

“Skylanders Giants software performed well, breaking into the top 10 title ranking, and selling over 160 percent more units than last year's Skylanders title did in its debut month at retail.

Unfortunately, other sequels new to market this month did not perform as well compared to prior iterations. This, combined with poor comps against the launch of hits like Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City in October 2011 led to the decline in software sales. While October was another month of steep declines in retail sales, we are looking forward to November 2012 with the results of Assassin's Creed III, and Halo 4, which were positively reviewed, as well as the results of Call of Duty: Black Ops II. These software titles, along with the Wii U launch on November 18, will provide a much needed boost to retail sales.

While we saw declines in hardware unit sales across all platforms year-over-year, when looking at average sales per week versus September, several consoles realized higher sales: the 360, PS3, NDS and 3DS. This is a sign of increasing momentum as we move into the holiday season.”

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