American console sales continue to decline throughout April

Friday, May 29, 2009

The latest console data from the NPD Group shows that, in April, Nintendo’s DSi handheld console outsold all other consoles in America in its first month of release. Apart from the Nintendo Wii and the original Nintendo DS, all other consoles sold under 200,000 units.

A worrying trend for the industry is that the Xbox 360, Wii and the Playstation 3 all had lower sales on a month-over-month and a year-over-year basis.

Hardware sales for the month in America fell 8% year-over-year, down to $391 million. Year-to-date sales are down 1%, sitting at $1.83 billion.

The fall in hardware sales year-over-year can be attributed to major title releases last year in the month of April such as Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart Wii.

Below are the full results provided by NPD:

Console Sales
Nintendo DSi 827,000
Wii 340,000
Nintendo DS Lite 215,000
Xbox 360 175,000
Playstation 2 172,000
Playstation 3 127,000
PSP 116,000