In 2005, the total U.S. sales of video game hardware, software and accessories rose 6% over 2004 to $10.5 billion
USD ($9.9 billion, 2004) breaking 2002's $10.3 billion record for the industry. The increase is largely due to the portable game market which counterbalanced sluggish console game sales. Delays, hardware shortages, and anticipation of next-generation video game consoles have been cited as reasoning for slow sales for both console games and console hardware. Console games and hardware dropped by 12% and 3% respectively. The portable market of the video game industry rose to $1.4 billion, the second time sales broke the $1 billion mark in the industry's history. Mostly due to the release of the
Nintendo DS and the
PlayStation Portable in North America, sales for portable hardware rose 96% over 2004. Although the release of the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP aided in spurring growth in the portable market, the
Game Boy Advance still represented 62% total portable software units sold and 52% of total portable software dollar sales. Computer games continued its trend and declined by 14%, dropping from $1.1 billion in 2004 to $953 million. Although sales did decrease,
NPD claims that playing games on the PC is actually increasing through a variety of different mediums including online websites and
MMO subscriptions.
Video game systems •
PlayStation 2 •
Xbox •
GameCube •
Xbox 360 Additionally,
Microsoft's
Xbox 360,
Sony's
PlayStation 3 and
Nintendo's
Wii were officially unveiled during or just prior to
E3; however, only the Xbox 360 was released in 2005. The Xbox 360 was released in
North America on November 22,
Europe on December 2, and
Japan on December 10.
Handheld game systems •
Game Boy Advance/
Game Boy Advance SP/
Game Boy Micro •
Nintendo DS •
PlayStation Portable This year saw the worldwide release of
Sony's
PlayStation Portable after initially launching in Japan the previous year. The
Nintendo DS made its launch in
Australasia on February 24 and then in
Europe on March 11.
Nintendo also released the
Game Boy Micro, the final revision model of the
Game Boy Advance as well as the final entry in the
Game Boy family overall. The Game Boy Micro was negatively received due to it not being
backwards compatible with
Game Boy and
Game Boy Color games (unlike the first 2 GBA models), leading to it being one of Nintendo's worst-selling consoles of all time.
Hardware releases , the final entry in the
Game Boy family.
Best-selling video games }+
Japan }
United States }+
PAL regions == Notable deaths ==