NPD offers a preliminary estimate of 2010 consumer spending "on gaming content via all monetization methods, including new physical video and PC games, used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full-game downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile game apps," saying this is between $15.4 and $15.6 billion, and this represents sales that are flat or down by as much as 1 percent compared with 2009. They go on to say: "Based on this estimate, spending on new physical content at retail continues to account for the majority of the total consumer spend on games content. U.S. retail sales of new physical video game content, which includes portable, console and PC game software, generated revenues of $10.1 billion, a 5 percent decline over the $10.6 billion generated in 2009." They point to PC game sales as one of the bright spots in the study:

Bright spots came from PC games new physical retail software, which was up 3 percent in 2010, as well as increases in the consumer spend on used games sales, full-game digital downloads and downloadable content, mobile gaming apps, and social network gaming, which offset declines in console and portable new physical game sales, rentals, and subscriptions.