Amazon recently said that it is selling now more ebooks than hardcover books, digital music sales are expected to surpass CD sales this year in the U.S. and the trend in game sales isn’t far behind. According to NPD, digital game sales are approaching parity with physical in-store sales. But clouds are already on the horizon as digital outlets have to worry about the popularity of free social network gaming and free mobile games.

NPD said that U.S. Americans purchased 21.3 million games online in 2009, while in-store purchases declined to 23.5 million units, representing a 52% share. Revenue for physical sales declined as well, but kept a substantially higher share than in units. Digital downloads represent only 36% of revenue, NPD said. The leading digital retailers in terms of unit share are Steam, Direct2Drive, Blizzard, EA and Worldofwarcraft.com, according to NPD.

Casual game retailers, among them Bigfishgames, Pogo, Gamehouse, iWin and Realarcade, are now taking hits from free social network and mobile gaming. “The popularity of social network gaming increased from Q3’09 to Q4’09 as 4.8 million more people played games on a social network in the U.S.,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group.  “This demonstrates how consumers can now experience casual types of games through myriad vehicles, broadening the competitive landscape.”

“Free mobile gaming is also capturing the attention of gamers, illustrated by the 30 percent increase in usage of the iPhone and the iPod Touch as gaming devices from Q2’09 to Q4’09,” NPD said. 97% of those who downloaded a game app in Q4’09 downloaded a free version of a game.

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