The absence of a blockbuster release and the recession combined to push US video game sales sharply lower last month, market research firm NPD Group said.
US video game sales fell 17 percent last month compared with a year ago to US$1.03 billion, NPD said late on Thursday, and were down 30 percent from sales of US$1.43 billion the previous month.
Hardware sales fell 8 percent year-on-year to US$391.6 million, software sales dropped 23 percent to US$510.7 million and sales of accessories were down 15 percent to US$129.4 million, NPD said.
‘SOFT ON THE SURFACE”
“While April sales might appear soft on the surface, it’s important to remember that April is being compared against a month that realized nearly 50-percent growth over April 2007,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said.
April last year saw the release of hot-selling games Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart.
“While the continued difficult economic environment is a factor to consider,” Frazier said, “video games is the category that consumers tell us they’re least likely to cut their spending on in coming months.”
TOP PLATFORM
Nintendo’s Wii console remained the top-selling game platform last month, but its sales of 340,000 units were down 43.4 percent from March.
Sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 plunged 47 percent last month compared with the previous month to 175,000 units, while Sony’s PlayStation 3 saw sales drop by 41.7 percent to 127,000 units.
Sales of Sony’s PSP handheld console fell 30.9 percent last month to 116,000 units.
Sales of Nintendo’s DS soared last month to 1.04 million units from 563,000 in March on the release of the Nintendo DSi, the latest version of its handheld console.
Sony’s PlayStation 2 also bucked the trend, selling 172,000 units last month, up from 112,000 in March, owing largely to cutting the price to what the NPD’s Frazier called the “budget-friendly price point of 99 dollars.”
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