Survey: Nintendo Dominates Game Sales in April

Today, industry research firm NPD Group released its report on the performance of the U.S. video game industry for the month of April, and according to the overall results, cumulative sales of software, hardware, and accessories amounted to a total of US$838.6 million, a 20 percent increase over April 2006.

Nintendo consoles and handhelds ruled over the hardware landscape yet again, with the perennially best-selling DS Lite outselling all other systems with 471,000 sold in the American market. The Nintendo Wii, after being plagued by months of hardware shortages, managed to finally surpass the PS2 and all other home consoles with 366,000 units sold.

As for the PS2, the aging Sony console still shows signs of life with 194,000 systems sold, although the system is also beginning to show signs of weakness when compared to March, when sales reached 280,000 units. The PSP, after its recent price cut, managed to take 4th with 183,000.

The remaining next-gen systems took dips in sales as well, although the PS3's stumble was much more significant. The Xbox 360 sold 174,000 units, in comparison to March's totals of 199,000, but the PS3 only sold 82,000 last month, a 37 percent drop from 130,000 units sold in March.

Contributing to the wavering sales of next-gen consoles was a shortage of successful software titles. Total software sales resulted in a 1 percent drop from April of last year, despite Wedbush Morgan's prediction of a 24 percent rise and Lazard Capital's forecast of a 15-20 percent increase.

Nintendo software anchored the market last month with titles such as Pokemon Diamond (1.045 million), Pokemon Pearl (712,000), Super Paper Mario (352,000), and Wii Play w/ Remote (249,000), which took the top four sales spots in that order. Guitar Hero II w/ Guitar for the Xbox 360 rounded out the top 5 with 197,000 units sold.

Game accessories, on the other hand, performed well, providing $110.4 million in sales, a 37 percent increase. In fact, the industry as a whole is performing well, with cumulative year-to-date sales totaling $4.2 billion, a 46 percent increase from the 2006 calendar year.