The US video game industry suffered one of its worst sales declines last month, according to April figures released on Thursday by the NPD research firm.
Console sales fell by 37 per cent and software sales by 22 per cent, with the industry suffering an overall 26 per cent fall to $766m in revenues, down from $1.03bn a year earlier.
NPD said 21 per cent of the decline could be blamed on the Easter buying period falling in March rather than April this year.
The fall was the fourth largest ever after September 2000, June 2009 and July 2009.
Software sales fell way short of analysts’ expectations. Wedbush Morgan Securities had predicted a 2 per cent rise in sales to $520m from $512m , rather than the 22 per cent fall to $398m.
Nintendo’s DS handheld console fell sharpest on the hardware side, from more than 1m units sold in April 2009 to 440,000 last month. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 were the only consoles to enjoy a unit sales increase.
In software, the slide in popularity of non hard-core games continues. Casual game sales, which include the fitness, music and dance genres, comprised only 24 per cent of the software total of $512m, compared to 36 per cent a year earlier.
The console makers had their usual spin on the NPD figures.
Microsoft said it had the number-one game in Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction , selling 486,000 units, More than one million unique players participated in the Halo: Reach public beta on its opening day, an amount greater than the total number of participants in the Halo 3 beta. Xbox 360 hardware sales of 185,000 units were up six per cent year-over-year.
Sony said the PS3 continued to be the only hardware console to see double digit growth both year over year ( 42.6 per cent) and year to date (37.2 per cent).
“Having just surpassed nine consecutive months of year over year growth for PS3 hardware and a revenue increase of 32 per cent for PS3 software since last April, we look at today’s earnings as a proof point to our business model,” said Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America.
Nintendo claimed six of the top-ten best-selling games in April, with two Pokemon versions, New Super Mario Bros, Wii Sports Resort, Ubisoft’s Just Dance and Wii Fit Plus. With Wii sales of 277,000 and DS sales, it said it accounted for 60 per cent of all hardware sold in April.
Nintendo introduced an alternative black colour scheme for the Wii on May 9 and added a Wii MotionPlus accessory and the Wii Sports Resort game to its $200 bundle.
