Will a new PlayStation give a spark to the beleaguered videogame industry?

The Triangle’s gaming industry – one of the nation’s biggest such clusters – will be watching this week as the new Sony device is expected to be announced on Wednesday.

Something is needed.

U.S. retail sales of video-game software, hardware and accessories rose 9 percent to $834.7 million in January, but only because business was aided by an extra week compared with a year earlier, according to market research firm NPD Group Inc.

Even with five weeks in this year’s January data, sales of software fell 0.5 percent to $392.9 million, NPD reports.

Hardware sales rose 3.7 percent to $205 million in the period ended Feb. 2.

The retail-industry data accounts for about 50 percent of total consumer spending on games, NPD said. With a normalized four-week comparison, hardware and software sales would have experienced double-digit percentage declines, the researcher said.

Microsoft Corp. held the lead in console sales in January for the 25th consecutive month. The Redmond, Washington-based company sold 281,000 Xbox 360 units, up 4.1 percent from 270,000 a year ago, said David Dennis, an Xbox spokesman.

The video-game industry, in the eighth year of the current console cycle, has entered a period of transition to new consoles. Nintendo Co. began selling the Wii U in November, Sony has scheduled a Feb. 20 meeting where it’s expected to discuss plans for a new PlayStation 4.

Microsoft’s Dennis declined to comment on reports that the company will begin selling a new Xbox later this year.

Sony Revamps PlayStation 

For almost two decades, Sony Corp.’s PlayStation gaming console has been the pride of the company’s legions of engineers. Now President Kazuo Hirai hopes a makeover can keep it from tracking other Sony hardware hits into obscurity.

By featuring innovations such as DVD and Blu-ray movie players, Sony has sold more PlayStations than Trinitron TVs and about as many as the Walkman music player. Yet the latest iteration, the PlayStation 3, launched in 2006 — a year before Apple Inc.’s first iPhone — has seen sales slow as it ages.

On Feb. 20, Sony will announce a new version of the console with more realistic game play and more entertainment options, said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. Pachter cited game developers and retailers for saying Sony “is 100 percent certain to announce the PlayStation 4” during an event next week in New York.

The question facing Sony and rival Nintendo Co., which released its Wii U console last year, is whether the new devices are in sync with consumer preferences for mobile computing on devices from Apple and Samsung Electronics Co.

“Sony and Nintendo refuse to acknowledge they don’t have a market like they had 20 years ago,” Pachter said. “They’re desperately clinging to the notion they can get it back.”

Hirai, 52, named chief executive officer last year partly because of his success running the PlayStation business, has said he considers the console to be the centerpiece of a universe of exclusive content running on Sony phones, tablets and TVs.

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo last month, Hirai said Sony is working to improve its position in mobile gaming.

“We’re trying to leverage past expertise in the traditional video-game business and bring that experience onto the smartphone,” he said. “So we’re actually playing in both fields, which I think is very strategic.”

Sony needs to get its PlayStation strategy right because it hasn’t made money in the TV business since the 12 months ended March 2004. This month, it reported an eighth straight quarterly loss as Apple’s iPad and iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones tilt the games business away from consoles by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft Corp., which makes the Xbox 360.

The value of games downloaded to computers and mobile devices rose 16 percent last year, according to researcher NPD Group Inc., while titles for dedicated consoles fell 21 percent.

The PlayStation 4 faces a challenge similar to the struggling TV business, where margins are squeezed by Samsung’s efficient manufacturing and lower-cost Chinese products. Many mobile phones also are subsidized by U.S. wireless carriers.

Sony projects a 20 billion-yen profit this year after selling its New York headquarters for $1.1 billion. As Hirai culls ancillary businesses such as chemicals and display-making, he aims to generate 70 percent of revenue and 85 percent of operating profit in Sony’s electronics operations by March 2015 from three businesses: digital imaging, mobile devices and games.