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US video game sales down large in April

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DVDBack23 @ May 15, 2009 17:50 | 4 comments

According to new figures from the NPD Group, video game software sales in the United States fell 23 percent year-on-year for the month of April.

Overall sales fell to $510 million USD, but NPD analyst Anita Frazier did note that the month had a particularly weak software release schedule.

"The number of new releases this month is fairly comparable to what was introduced last April, but GTA IV (on both PS3 and the 360) sold nearly 1 million more units last April than the entire top 10 list did this year," added Frazier.

"April 2008 also featured the release of Mario Kart for Wii, which has remained a top-selling game for this past year, and is on this month's top 10 list as well. This really illustrates the impact of comparing against a month when there were several new blockbuster titles new to the market," she concluded.

For hardware sales, all the next-gen consoles saw declines with Nintendo leading the way with 340,000 Wii units sold, a 55 percent decline year on year. Following was the Xbox 360 with 175,000 units sold, a 7 percent decline. Surprisingly, the PlayStation 2 came in next, posting a huge 30 percent increase in sales. The PlayStation 3 lagged behind again, with 127,000 units sold, a 33 percent decline year-on-year.

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Comments

Comment by: Lothros (May 15, 2009 19:46)

InB4TheyBlamePiracy

Comment by: Oner (May 15, 2009 21:15)

Just to reiterate, NPD = US ~ not the World...

Comment by: avoidz (May 21, 2009 15:34)

Yeah, I wonder if they'll blame piracy for these figures...

Comment by: heraldsun (May 21, 2009 21:49)

Or could it have anything to do with your economy.... you think ? even Japans economy...why is it piracy gets the blame for everything ?.i agree it does go on and will continue to go on....in todays economics climate it does make sense to turn to piracy but then again can people really afford to do that even.?
piracy is like everything else it has it's habitual offenders and like everything else it won't go away no matter how hard anyone tries to stamp it out..if a human can make up a supposed encryption for copyright protection then another human can break it,there is always someone smarter out there.
Now i don't know who regulates (i'm talking video games here)it but if you read carefully on the back of the games cover this game is not for rental or to be offered to play for money and public hiring..something to that effect without the consent of the contents owners permission... now this to me is promoting piracy even without the owners permission,i bet you games and video hirers do not have permission to hire out the games from the likes of THQ....Rockstar,etc,etc, Another classic example is EB Games with their 7 day exchange/refund policy...yes i'm guilty of that when money is tight (i'm not frightened to admit it) don't get me wrong i support the game developers and buy the original game but like everyone else if i'm short of cash...on a good game then i have resorted to this tactic.Now where i am from...which is Australia, you cannot return a game to place of purchase for a refund,i'm not 100% on this one though for exchange to the same value whether it be another game or item to same value....the only place that allows a return for refund here that i am aware of is EB Games..
just my 2 cents worth on the subject :)