April NPD: Sam Fisher's grim month

by Mike Schramm on May 13th 2010 7:30PM

Apparently everybody was paying taxes last month instead of buying games, because despite analysts' expectations, sales for April were way down. As you can see below, sales dropped out on every single console that NPD tracked during April, with the Wii taking the biggest hit, down 50 percent from March. Hardware sales overall fell by 37 percent.

Software sales didn't do any better -- Splinter Cell Conviction was a bright spot and Super Street Fighter IV just barely made the list (which you can find after the break), but otherwise it was all leftovers from March and previous months. NPD reports that last month's 11 percent industry drop-off was the "worst year-over-year decline...since July '09, and the fourth largest year-over-year percentage decline ever." The industry got rained on -- here's hoping April showers bring some May flowers.

-DS: 441K

260K (-37%)
-Wii: 277K

281K (-50%)
-360: 185K

153K (-45%)
-PS3: 181K

133K (-42%)
-PSP: 66K

54K (-44%)
-PS2 sales are no longer being tracked by NPD -- goodbye, old friend.

See the top 10 games after the break. (Note: Sales figures for the games ranked six through ten were withheld by NPD for unstated reasons.)

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction - Xbox 360 - Ubisoft - 486K
Pokemon SoulSilver - DS - Nintendo - 243K
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Wii - Nintendo - 200K
Pokemon HeartGold - DS - Nintendo - 193K
God of War III - PS3 - Sony - 180K
Wii Sports Resort w/ Wii Motion Plus - Wii - Nintendo
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Xbox 360 - EA
Wii Fit Plus - Wii - Nintendo
Just Dance - Wii - Ubisoft
Super Street Fighter IV - PS3 - Capcom

Source

Tags: april-2010, DS, god-of-war-iii, hardware, just-dance, Microsoft, new-super-mario-bros-wii, Nintendo, npd, npd-monthly, sales, software, splinter-cell-conviction, super-street-fighter-iv, Wii, wii-fit-plus, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (73)

We salute ye, ye olde barnacle, fare thee well.

Nice to see some games deserving of the list. Although I am truly surprised Soul Silver beat out Heart Gold.

Silver sells way more than gold in my store. Those numbers for gold seem high to me...

Either way they made great sales on both. The reason I am surprised is because every store I have been to, there's a lot less Golds hanging around than Silver, if any.

Gold is actually the better game with more exclusive pokemans (i think Soul Silver has like 10 and Heart Gold has 12 or something). For this reason alone i will get Gold.

but as a kid didnt we all have silver? lol

i remember hoho not being too exciting.

@Winterfang

LOL. When you say it like that, it really makes you think. QFT.

I was a golden boy. ;)

As WINterfang kind of alluded to, I wonder whether it's because the majority of Pokemon players are boys (I think) and perhaps Heart Gold sounds a bit girly, so that's why they're opting for Soul Silver.

Don't typically care about sales, but I gotta pour a little out for the homie. PS2...ya did good.

*looks at Ps2 sales*
http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/

thats jacked up....

farewell my friend. I've sunk literally months of life into playing you. I probably will play your games for many more months down the road when I'm old and nostalgic. After nearly a decade you have never failed me, never broken down, just kept truckin through countless hours of final fantasy, metal gear solid, and countless other titles. I'll miss you my friend(at least on the NPD charts)

Seems April is the new summer drought, cause May is full of new games.

"PS2 sales are no longer being tracked by NPD -- goodbye,"

*single tear*

Anyways, so far this gen has been great and probably the most balanced generation I have seen in a long time. Ok... Well, the Wii and DS is a bit above the rest, but still.

April's releases were about what I expected for this time of year. I still don't understand the bountiful May we're having. I haven't been nearly good enough to deserve this.

Everyone, like me, is waiting for SCC on the cheap since it has little replay value. Buddy scored 1k chevos on 30 hours. No SvM is the main reason I held off on it. Cancelled my preorder I held for a long time too. Here to Red Dead!

SCC?

...Ahh, Splinter Cell: Conviction. I hate when people just create an obscure abbreviation. Sure, I know what you're talking about because the article talks about it. But if you would have just said "gonna go play some SCC" I would have no idea what you're talking about. Though I guess this isn't as obscure as some other ones I have seen. I really just wanted an excuse to say that.

Well, I'm getting off of JS to go watch the new NOES

Is it just me, or does 30 hours for 60 bucks (45 at Amazon) seem like a really, really good deal?

What's wrong with that?

Ironic that it seems like a good deal when so many are against 20-100+ hours of entertainment for $15

I put in 3-4x that into Fallout 3, I got my money's worth in that game, ME and ME2 again money's worth, AC2... money's worth, Borderlands etc, heck, even most Lego games (I've played them all so far) I've gotten in more hours and you can pick those up for $30-40 close to release... 30 hours in SCC (Splinter Cell Conviction ha), and he said he took his time doing it. I'll wait for it to drop to $20 before I bother... now if it had SvM I would have picked it up release night at midnight and be playing it till next year.

Little replay value ... ?

Dude where have you been getting your info from?

The game has an entire dedicated prequel campaign that you can play split screen and online.

Then there's Hunter mode, Last Stand, and Face Off ... you got more then enough gameplay variety and options to last you at bare minimum 60 hours combined ....

@Bobs: Ok you talk to me in a month or so and see if anyone is still playing it. It's dropping and dropping on the playlist and those modes are nothing that will keep people coming back for more.

I don't know about consoles being sold but I know that May is gonna be huge for software sales.

NPD's not tracking PS2 anymore. Is this a sign of the end for the PS2???

Hell no! I didn't even buy mine yet!

But srsly? They're not tracking it anymore? Why? The PS2 is a valid entry in the console market...why the decision all of a sudden?

Yessir. The awesomeness is heading to retirement.

Since this is the last year of the PS2's "10 year life cycle" I wonder if it'll push Sony to update PS3 with PS2 emulation

I'd like to see how Sony could open the PS3's doors to the PS2 library without opening another hole to Geohot. BTW, whatever happened to that guy?

I don't see how it would open another hole for Geohot. The old 80gb models have software emulation, don't see how it'd be any different on the new models.

Sony quit providing emulation for PS2 games so they could continue to sell the actual PS2 systems. There was a large push into emerging gaming markets (South America) and they wanted to make their products accessible to as many consumers as possible. I'm pretty sure the emulation will be back for PS4...possibly even PS3 closer to the end of its 10 year cycle.

@ Traceur...No PS3 has used pure emulation for PS2 games, although back in 2005 is certainly was SONY's stated goal. If your PS3 has PS2 compatibility it either has the full PS2 chip set in it or at a bare minimum it has the Graphics Synthesizer Chip in it.

Super Street Fighter IV would be higher on the list if it were...

INDESTRUCTIBLE

I guess you could say Super Street Fighter IV would be higher on the list if it were...

*Puts on sunglasses*

... indestructible.

(Like that! :p)

My friend, that song is...

*Puts on sunglasses*

GUTTER TRASH.

YEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHH!

So, has NSMB Wii outsold both versions of MW2 already? I think they had already outsold the PS3 version its first month.

I know Reggie lost the bet he made in reference to the 360 version. But, it's probably outsold both combined by now.

he never said against the 360 version . . .

he said EITHER the Xbox 360 or the PS3 version. by the end of that holiday season.

Then Geoff Keighley clarified specifically with the "360 version" and Reggie said yes. I don't think many people questioned whether it would outsell the PS3 version, especially with the added time he wanted.

It'll cruise to that goal eventually, but i suppose March was the end of the bet terms, huh?

He said holiday season I believe. I'm pretty sure (unless I'm misremembering) that he said until the end of the Jan NPDs.

As expected, God of War 3 wasn't enough to get Sony above the 360 for April NPD either.

like i said before . . .

There is no such thing as a system seller anymore (unless its name is halo . . . and even then its a maybe on weather it will sell systems)

the market is saturated.

God of War III came out in March. 360 had Splinter Cell, obviously it'd sell more. And it didn't even sell that much more.

uhhhh You know God of War 3 came out in March right?

damn bad times we living in when the trolls cant even get their bashing months right

But the 360 outsold the PS3 in March NPD as well.

There were some PS3 fanboys that claimed the God of War 3 effect wouldn't show up until April after the March numbers were out.

Looks like the GOW effect only lasted a few weeks, and it wasn't enough.

@Ordeith

The PS3 has continued to hold serve or marginally outsell the 360 in North America consistently since the Slim was launched. Talking about fanboy this and fanboy that makes you look like a fanboy yourself. All the Apple trolling on Engadget does a good enough job for you, no need to come over here and slam anything not MS. Just saying ...

DSG's not even on the 360 so why you trollin' with that avatar?

You need a RROD with a Mario Hat on top.

and yet all the bitter PS3 fans there are and it still isn't helping the system in NA.

....and I have a Wii. :P

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days

Vita 'UMD Passport' won't be offered in US 221 comments
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review: A tempting fate 153 comments
David Jaffe leaves Eat Sleep Play, layoffs hit developer [Update] 107 comments
Blizzard taking Valve to court over 'DOTA' trademark 101 comments
Don't call it a remake: Final Fantasy X is a 'remaster,' to be clear 95 comments

April NPD: Sam Fisher's grim month

Reader Comments (73)

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:34PM MarkezJM said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:34PM Spike Spiegel Humble Bounty Hun said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:38PM lockheede said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:39PM Spike Spiegel Humble Bounty Hun said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:00PM Foetoid said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:12PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 13th 2010 11:01PM Spike Spiegel Humble Bounty Hun said

Posted: May 14th 2010 6:20AM WolfForager said

Posted: May 14th 2010 10:41AM Haywired said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:34PM BboyIzilla said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:35PM LiquidSnake said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:30PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: May 13th 2010 9:05PM Grey said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:38PM bigE said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:39PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:43PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:40PM SisypheanLife said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:46PM Usr666 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:56PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:03PM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:06PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:08PM Usr666 said

Posted: May 14th 2010 1:11AM BoBsS said

Posted: May 14th 2010 7:21AM Usr666 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:46PM MLC said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:51PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 13th 2010 7:51PM Spike Spiegel Humble Bounty Hun said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:00PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:09PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:18PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 9:26PM Kid Icarus said

Posted: May 13th 2010 9:37PM kspraydad said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:06PM Acosta02 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:10PM Wiizer said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:14PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:16PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:13PM Wiizer said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:18PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:25PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:42PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:50PM Mr Khan said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:52PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:16PM Ordeith said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:27PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:29PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:35PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:38PM Ordeith said

Posted: May 13th 2010 8:48PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: May 13th 2010 9:39PM Wiizer said

Posted: May 14th 2010 12:38AM Ordeith said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Double Fine Kickstarter passes $1 million in under 24 hours, breaking yet another record

Featured Stories

The Joystiq Show - 024: Kingdoms of Double Fine

Shank 2 review: Refined brutality

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier brings information warfare to the front

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days