Video games and consoles sales in the US have fallen due to the slowing economy, few “blockbuster” releases and a tough comparison with a year-ago period that featured several hits, according to a report released by the NPD Group on Thursday.
Sales for the Nintendo Wii fell 52 percent from a year ago, selling only 340,000 units; the PlayStation 3 sales dropped by a third, to only 127,000 units; and the Xbox 360 sales were also down, to 175,000 units during the month. For portables, the PlayStation Portable sold 116,000 units. What about the PlayStation 2? It still outsells the PlayStation 3 with 172,000 units.
The biggest winner was the Nintendo DSi, where its sales constituted nearly a third of all console sales, selling over 800,000 models during April. The numbers, however, were merged with the previous DS Lite – making the DS brand selling over 1 million units.
For games, Nintendo’s own games managed to take the top four of all games, according to Ars Technica, with Wii Fit selling 471,000 units, Pokemon Platinum with 433,000 units, Mario Kart with 210,000 units and Wii Play – since it has an additional controller – with 170,000 units.
Nintendo also took the seventh spot (New Super Mario Bros. with 119,000 units) and eighth place (Mario Kart DS with 112,000 units). Why is this news worthy? These games were released two years ago! Maybe discounts do help a game sell.
For the Xbox 360, Godfather 2 came in fifth with 155,000 units sold, and Resident Evil 5 selling 122,000 units. Guitar Hero Aerosmith took the number nine spot with 110,000 units sold. For the PlayStation 3, the only game that managed to get into the top 10 was Godfather 2, selling 91,000 units during the month of April.