Andre Yoskowitz
15 May 2009 13:50
According to new figures from the NPD Group, video game software sales in the United States fell 23 percent year-on-year for the month of April.
Overall sales fell to $510 million USD, but NPD analyst Anita Frazier did note that the month had a particularly weak software release schedule.
"The number of new releases this month is fairly comparable to what was introduced last April, but GTA IV (on both PS3 and the 360) sold nearly 1 million more units last April than the entire top 10 list did this year," added Frazier.
"April 2008 also featured the release of Mario Kart for Wii, which has remained a top-selling game for this past year, and is on this month's top 10 list as well. This really illustrates the impact of comparing against a month when there were several new blockbuster titles new to the market," she concluded.
For hardware sales, all the next-gen consoles saw declines with Nintendo leading the way with 340,000 Wii units sold, a 55 percent decline year on year. Following was the Xbox 360 with 175,000 units sold, a 7 percent decline. Surprisingly, the PlayStation 2 came in next, posting a huge 30 percent increase in sales. The PlayStation 3 lagged behind again, with 127,000 units sold, a 33 percent decline year-on-year.