Batman drives video game sales higher in June
Video game sales returned to growth in June with an assist from the Caped Crusader. June sales of new video game products at U.S. retail rose 18% vs. June 2014 to $869.4 million, the NPD Group reported late Thursday. In May, game sales fell 13% year over year. Video game hardware sales rose 8% to $313.1 million. Game software sales jumped 21% to $345.5 million. And game accessories sales leaped 34% to $210.7 million, NPD said. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a unit of Time Warner (TWX), was the big winner among game publishers in June. It had the No. 1 game in “Batman: Arkham Knight” and had four of the top 10 best-selling games last month. Its other games in the top 10 included “Lego Jurassic World,” “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” and “Mortal Kombat X.” Counting only its 12 days of sales in June,…