For whatever reason, April 2010 was a miserable month for games. Hardware sales on every system plummeted, including a 50 percent Wii free-fall, and software figures were pretty lousy too.
Overall, hardware sales dipped 37 percent from April’s figures.
- Nintendo DS – 440,800
- Wii – 277,200
- Xbox 360 – 185,000
- PlayStation 3 – 180,800
- PSP – 65,500
- PlayStation 2 – figures no longer tracked.
That’s $249.3 million USD in April, down a monumental 37 percent from the year prior. What gives?
“The portable side of the industry contributed more than its fair share to the industry decline,” notes Anita Frazier, a NPD analyst. “The portable business across hardware, software and accessories accounted for 25% of total industry dollar sales in April but declines in portable sales compared to April ’09 accounted for 61% of the total industry decrease.”
On the software side of these financials, Sam Fisher and his latest adventure in Splinter Cell: Conviction led the way, for an overall software take of $398.5 million USD, down 22 percent from last year.
01. Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360) – 486,100
02. Pokemon SoulSilver (DS) – 242,900
03. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) – 200,300
04. Pokemon HeartGold (DS) – 192,600
05. God of War III (PS3) – 180,300
06. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 179,000
07. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Xbox 360) – 166,000
08. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – ??? (not provided)
09. Just Dance (Wii) – 144,000
10. Super Street Fighter IV (PS3) – 143,000
“A big contributor to the decline in software sales comes from the March ’10 new releases, which fell off more dramatically than did last year’s March releases,” explains Frazier. “In aggregate, March ’09 new releases dropped off by 54% in April ’09 sales, while this year, new releases in March ’10 dropped off by 75% in April.”
As sad as these reports may seem, with Red Dead: Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and others due out in May, things should get better soon!
Source: Kotaku
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