July Was A Poor Month For Video Game Retail In North America.

For those that aren't American and don't understand, NCAA stands for (as we understand it at least) National Collegiate Athletic Association. These are essentially teams — in a variety of sports — made up of college students. Even more bizarre is that the top selling game in North America last month (July) was NCAA Football 12. We don't get it? Why would anyone want to play as students?

The equivalent would be EA releasing a University Rugby League video game here in the UK, where you play as students from Oxford against Manchester, etc. What the heck? No one would buy that game? We don't understand. Any American readers that care to explain the attraction, please drop by in the comments. We're not being confrontational — we're just confused.

On topic: sales dipped in North America for July. Console sales dropped by 29%, while software was down 17%. Analyst Anita Frazer said that July 2011 was the industry's "lowest month since October 2006". Whoopsies.

Nintendo's DS line was the top-selling format for the month, with Sony touting strong performance of its PlayStation Move peripheral. In software, aside from NCAA Football 12 it's pretty much as you were. Cars 2 and Call Of Duty: Black Ops continued to dominate the charts. Hit the jump for the breakdown.

  1. NCAA Football 12 (360, PS3)
  2. Cars 2 (NDS, Wii, 360, PS3, PC)
  3. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, NDS, Wii, PC)
  4. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Wii, NDS, 360, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC)
  5. Just Dance 2 (Wii)
  6. Major League Baseball 2K11 (360, Wii, NDS, PS3, PS2, PSP, PC)
  7. Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Wii, 360, PS3)
  8. Fallout: New Vegas (360, PS3, PC)
  9. New Super Mario Bros DS (NDS)
  10. Mortal Kombat (360, PS3)