Further to yesterday's news item on the results of gaming hardware and software sales for 2003, the U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray's Toy & Video Game Industry Primer November 2003 has also listed the top fifteen game publishers for the year-to-date.

The report charts software sales only, but covers the gamut of PC and console software sales. And while the report doesn't forecast sales figures for the 2003 holiday buying season, it does hint at where publishers will be by the end of the year. Sales figures listed below are in US dollars.

Topping the charts is Electronic Arts, dominating 20% of the market with nearly six hundred million dollars in sales. Next in line is Nintendo, commanding almost twelve percent of the market with $349 million in sales; Nintendo is followed by Sony's software publishing arm, claiming 7% of the market with over $206 million in sales. Sony's year-to-date sales figures have dropped half a percentage point from this time last year.

Following in their footsteps are the recently-renamed Atari and THQ, with $183 million and $177 million is sales, respectively. Atari's 6.2% marketshare far outpaces their performance for all of last year, when they only accounted for four and a half percent of all game software sales.

Languishing in their dust are Activision, Take Two Interactive, Konami, Ubisoft, and Namco, each ranging between 4.6% to 4.0% of the industry. Following them are console publishers Sega, who have dropped one and a half percent from this time last year, French-based Vivendi Universal whom, despite their hard corporate year, claim $87,222,580 in sales, increasing their market share from 2.1% last year to 2.9% this year, and Capcom whom have seen sales decrease by over three million dollars between now and this time last year.

Rounding off the list are Microsoft, whose market share has decreased by 0.5% with $78,441,010 in sales, and Acclaim who are showing a poor 2% market share compared to their 3.4% share this time last year.

Expectantly, stockholders reacted fearfully today in reaction to Tuesday's news of lackluster game sales, with stocks for many of the companies listed above falling over the day. The biggest losses where seen at Take-Two Interactive, whose stock fell over nine percent. Electronic Arts also took a hit, trading off 4.3% of their stock value. Most of the other publishers on the list lost around three percent of their stock value, with the exception of Atari, who managed a slight gain after a strong PR effort.

U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray

U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Publishes Toy & Video Game Industry Primer

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