According to data released by the NPD Group late Thursday, the July sales of video game software in the US touched their third-worst year-over-year plunge since January 1995. The monstrous 29 percent fall in the sales during July - compared to the sales during the same month last year - also marks the fifth monthly decline in a row! Though analysts were expecting a drop in sales during the month, they had projected it to be around 20 percent.

That the video game industry is in dire straits can also be gauged by the fact that, with the recent fall in sales numbers, the sales of game console and software have dropped 14 percent during the first seven months this year, as against the sales during the same period last year!

However, owing to the notable tumble in sales, NPD Analyst Anita Frazier said that for the video game industry sales to 'climb out of the red zone,' they should grow at least
11 percent henceforth for the remaining part of the year, as against the last year figures.

Showing an even worse performance than the software sales, the game hardware sales - including sales of consoles like PS 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii - fell 37 percent in July. Frazier noted: "Hardware sales have slowed considerably on nearly every platform!"