April NPD: DSi Soars While Sales Decline

[Keane Ng]

April NPD: DSi Soars While Sales Decline

April was another sluggish month for sales in the games business, with a successful DSi launch being the only bright spot in an otherwise disappointing picture.

No April foolin' here: NPD sales for last month show another month of decline for the games slanging business.

Hardware-wise, the DS was the main highlight, breaking a million units sold thanks to the launch of Nintendo's latest version of its handheld moneymaker, the DSi. The PS2 also enjoyed strong sales thanks to its price cut, though that achievement might be undermined by the disappointing performance of the PS3 and PSP. Hardware numbers are as follows:

PlayStation 2 172K
PlayStation 3 127K
PSP 116K
Xbox 360 175K
Wii 340K
Nintendo DS 1.04M

Hardware generated $391.63 million this April, an eight percent drop from April 2008, when sales racked up $426.94 million. The most dramatic year-to-year decline here is for the Wii, which sold 714,200 units last year but only 340,000 this year.

"Overall weakness in hardware sales other than the DS and PS2 platforms is likely to capture a lot of attention this month, particularly year-over-year decline of Wii sales," the NPD's Anita Frazier said, accounting for that decline with the fact that last April saw the release of Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Last April was undoubtedly full of heavy hitters, compared to the somewhat paltry offerings of new releases last month. Year-to-year software sales this April dropped 23% to $510.74 million, with sales being dominated by old chart toppers like Wii Fit and New Super Mario Bros. The only new release to crack the top ten was The Godfather II, which sold 155K on the 360 and 91K on PS3.

"April would have been a great month to release a big new game because there weren't a lot of high profile new releases," Frazier said. "In fact, you can see that the top 10 list for the month includes many games we've seen on the list for months, if not years."

Frazier again emphasized the difference between this year and last's releases. In addition to the aforementioned Nintendo titles, there was Grand Theft Auto IV, which "sold nearly 1 million more units last April than the entire top 10 list did this year."

Thinking about it that way, it seems unreasonable to think that this April could possibly stack up to last year. It's not just last month, though. For 2009 on the whole, overall sales are down 4% from 2008 to $5.28 billion.



Permalink

 

[NewGeekPhilosopher]

The DSi is a killer app in the sense that it will kill us all. I swear that thing is made by Skynet's processor company who have links to Nintendo.

In all seriousness though, there's a lot of good games for the DS right now that has probably increased the sales of the DSi. And the DS Lite. Not to say the PS3 and Xbox 360 don't have good games. I'm not not listing 360 games because I hate the 360, I just don't know what is actually on the system. Much like how I'm largely unaware of a lot of Wii games. There are two recent games from this year, Sega Mega Drive Collection and Eternal Sonata, which I plan to get for my PS3, but aside from Infamous and Heavy Rain there isn't too much new stuff that catches my eye. The DS for me is a nice system because I can select a wide variety of games which actually appeal to me (whether they would appeal to you, is up for debate) on public transport where I spend half my weekday life getting to school and back.

I did like Halo 3 when I played it at my brother's Uni dorm, it's a good FPS that isn't too overwhelming in terms of loud noises and too much going on.

 

[[Gavo]]

What I'm wondering right now is how the PS2 is still in the race, and nearly outselling the 360. I might grab a DSi once the price drops.

 

[shMerker]

Gavo, because hardware generations are a myth. It's still profitable to release games on the PS2 because developers know what they're doing with the hardware and relatively few have moved on to anything new. As a result the PS2 continues to be an attractive platform to buy into since the library of excellent titles keeps growing. People don't buy a new console just because it's been five years since the last time they did.

 

[The Great JT]

I think the sales are slowing because people have the current-gen systems.

Now if they would focus on better games...

 

[Zer_]

The DSi is a killer app in the sense that it will kill us all. I swear that thing is made by Skynet's processor company who have links to Nintendo.

In all seriousness though, there's a lot of good games for the DS right now that has probably increased the sales of the DSi. And the DS Lite. Not to say the PS3 and Xbox 360 don't have good games. I'm not not listing 360 games because I hate the 360, I just don't know what is actually on the system. Much like how I'm largely unaware of a lot of Wii games. There are two recent games from this year, Sega Mega Drive Collection and Eternal Sonata, which I plan to get for my PS3, but aside from Infamous and Heavy Rain there isn't too much new stuff that catches my eye. The DS for me is a nice system because I can select a wide variety of games which actually appeal to me (whether they would appeal to you, is up for debate) on public transport where I spend half my weekday life getting to school and back.

I did like Halo 3 when I played it at my brother's Uni dorm, it's a good FPS that isn't too overwhelming in terms of loud noises and too much going on.

Well there's some flawed logic. Saying you don't like the 360, and you don't know what kind of games are on the system is like saying you don't like Israel but you have no idea who or what lives there.

 

[NewGeekPhilosopher]

The DSi is a killer app in the sense that it will kill us all. I swear that thing is made by Skynet's processor company who have links to Nintendo.

In all seriousness though, there's a lot of good games for the DS right now that has probably increased the sales of the DSi. And the DS Lite. Not to say the PS3 and Xbox 360 don't have good games. I'm not not listing 360 games because I hate the 360, I just don't know what is actually on the system. Much like how I'm largely unaware of a lot of Wii games. There are two recent games from this year, Sega Mega Drive Collection and Eternal Sonata, which I plan to get for my PS3, but aside from Infamous and Heavy Rain there isn't too much new stuff that catches my eye. The DS for me is a nice system because I can select a wide variety of games which actually appeal to me (whether they would appeal to you, is up for debate) on public transport where I spend half my weekday life getting to school and back.

I did like Halo 3 when I played it at my brother's Uni dorm, it's a good FPS that isn't too overwhelming in terms of loud noises and too much going on.

Well there's some flawed logic. Saying you don't like the 360, and you don't know what kind of games are on the system is like saying you don't like Israel but you have no idea who or what lives there.

Perhaps you misunderstood me, I was trying to say that I'm not ignoring Xbox 360 because I allegedly hate the Xbox 360, I am just not listing them because I am unaware of them. However the challenges of the English language got in the way of effective communication! The way I was expressing it was pretty bad, I admit, I should have said that I don't hate the Xbox 360 but aren't aware of many games on the system. I don't hate the Xbox 360 at all, my brother's dorm buddies have one on campus and I play it when I go to visit.

As for your comments on Israel I would have thought you weren't a Grammar Nazi, and it is clear you are a Grammar Gestapo hunter, since you misinterpreted the "content" of my words rather than the arrangement of them.

 

[oliveira8]

I think it makes perfect sense in this thread...

Also go go PS2!

 

[jamesworkshop]

Wow the Wii has drop in sales by about 55% and still it sold over double the PS3/360 combined sales