Slowing sales of Nintendo consoles pulled down April U.S. video-game industry sales,according to NPD Group, but Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 sold better last month than they did in the year-ago period.
Gamers bought 185,400 Xbox 360s and 180,800 PS3s during April 2010, up from April 2009's stats of 175,000 and 127,000 respectively, according to numbers released Thursday by NPD.
But year over year, Nintendo Wii sales dropped from 340,000 consoles in April 2009 to 277,2000 last month.
Nevertheless, the Wii was still April's best-selling console out of the three."The industry experienced its worst year-over-year decline in April since July '09, and the fourth largest year-over-year percentage decline ever after September 2000, June '09 and July '09," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a news release.
"Some of the decline is explained by the shift of Easter timing," she added. "In April '09,
consumers attributed $55 million of industry sales to Easter as a purchase occasion, which
would account for about 21 percent of the decline from last year, since Easter purchasing
happened in March this year."
Thanks to low Nintendo sales and the unusual placement of Easter this year, gaming hardware sales dropped 37 percent year over year, NPD said. For the year to date, hardware sales are still 20 percent short of where they were this time last year.
Game software sales were down 22 percent in April, year over year. And the industry overall
saw sales drop 26 percent from the year-ago period. Year-to-date, overall sales are down 11 percent over last year.
Microsoft has seen year-over-year Xbox 360 sales increases every month this year, according to NPD data. As has Sony, with its PS3.
NPD's top 10 video games for April 2010 were:
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction (Xbox)
Pokemon Soul Silver Version (Nintendo DS)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
Pokemon Heart Gold Version (Nintendo DS)
God of War III (PS3)
Wii Sports Resort with Wii Motion Plus (Wii)
Battlefield:
Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board (Wii)
Just Dance (Wii)
Super Street Fighter IV (PS3)
