Andre Yoskowitz
16 May 2008 16:16
According to the NPD Group's latest figures, despite the blockbuster hit Grand Theft Auto IV, the Nintendo Wii still dominated US console sales for the month of April.
Overall total industry sales were up 40 percent year-over-year, and Hardware sales totaled 426 million USD, a 26 percent surge from April 2007. Software was the big winner however, seeing a 68 percent growth year over year, to hit $654.7 million USD in sales for the month. Most of that can be attributed to the hit games GTA IV and Mario Kart Wii which sold a combined 3.95 million copies.
The figures said that 714,000 Wii consoles were sold during the month, and that brought total lifetime sales in the US to 9.5 million. On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that its Xbox 360 console had become the first next gen console to hit 10 million US sales. It seems the Wii will get their next month, not to mention that the 360 was out for a full year before the Wii even hit stores.
For the month, only 188,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold, meaning Nintendo's console eclipsed Microsoft's by almost a 4-to-1 margin.
The PlayStation 3 lagged behind a little bit, selling 187,000 consoles to almost match that of the 360 for the month.
As usual, the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable sold well, moving 415,000 and 193,000 units respectively.