Another hot, fresh loaf of financial data has been pulled out of The NPD Group's analytical oven, and its buttery goodness contains sales information for the four week period between April 4 and May 7, 2013. During that time, the physical retail sector of the games industry was down 25 percent when compared with its performance over the same four weeks in 2012, pulling in a grand total of $495.2 million. It's worth noting, however, that this figure does not include the sale of PC games.

Hardware sales brought in $109.5 million, a 42 percent decrease from the $187.8 million seen last year, with the Xbox 360 once again enjoying the highest sales with 130,000 units moved. Meanwhile, the brief reprieve from year-over-year decline seen by the Accessories segment last month was short lived, as in April it by dropped 19 percent to a total of $131.4 million.

Software sales (including PC games) topped out at $267.8 million, with NetherRealm Studios' Injustice: Gods Among Us taking top honors as the best-selling game for the period, the first time a fighting game has finished in first since 2011's Mortal Kombat. Dead Island: Riptide and BioShock Infinite rounded out the podium in spots two and three respectively – meanwhile MMO/Syfy series Defiance debuted in fifth. As always, scope the full list after the break.

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EA has announced it will discontinue its Online Pass program. "Yes, we're discontinuing Online Pass," EA's senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg told GamesBeat in an e-mail. "None of our new EA titles will include that feature."

Reseburg added that "many players didn't respond to the format," despite EA going on record months after instituting Online Passes, reporting it had not seen a "significant" backlash. "We've listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward."

The Online Pass, a one-time use code required for online play, was first introduced in 2010 with the intent of being exclusive to EA Sports games, though it quickly escalated from there. Online Pass revenue generated between $10-$15 million for EA in its first year alone.

Nintendo's Wii U sold 55,000 units in April, down 19 percent from March, while the Wii sold 75,000 in April, down 16 percent from last year, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates. To compare, he says Microsoft sold 205,000 Xbox 360 units and Sony snagged 165,000 sales of the PlayStation 3 this April. By these numbers, sales of the Xbox 360 are down 13 percent and PS3 sales are down 5 percent year-over-year.

Nintendo hit 185,000 sales of its 3DS last month, a 46 percent jump in sales from the previous year, Pachter says. Sony's Vita is down 57 percent from 2012, selling just 30,000 units this April. These are of course the standard Pachter estimates, which can only mean one thing – the official numbers are on their way, via the NPD. Those figures are expected on Thursday.

As of March 31, the Wii U has sold 3.45 million units since its launch, below Nintendo's initial forecast of 5.5 million, and even January's adjustment to 4 million. Nintendo expects to have sold 9 million Wii U consoles by next fiscal year, ending March 2014, with sales spurred by the release of "key Nintendo titles."

Nintendo and an Ohio-based company called Motiva have completed their latest courtroom dance, with the Wii manufacturer coming out the winner once again in the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. The patent infringement case goes back to 2008 with Motiva claiming Nintendo's Wiimotes infringed on two patents the company held for "Human Movement Measurement System." The U.S. International Trade Commission already ruled in January 2012 in favor of Nintendo.

"Motiva's litigation was targeted at financial gains, not at encouraging adoption of Motiva's patented technology," Circuit Judge Sharon Prost wrote, as reported by Reuters. "There is simply no reasonable likelihood that, after successful litigation against Nintendo, Motiva's patented technology would have been licensed by partners who would have incorporated it."

"We are very pleased with this result. The court confirmed that Motiva's sole activity, litigation against Nintendo, did not satisfy the ITC's domestic industry requirement," said Richard Medway, Nintendo of America's deputy general counsel. "We vigorously defend patent lawsuits when we firmly believe that we have not infringed another party's patent."

The lawyer for Motiva said the company will now take the case to the district court. The judge and Medway then went under the nearest bridge and laid out some nice bedding made of the finest straw to show there were no hard feelings toward Motiva.

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Split controller designs are nothing new. We've seen them implemented by third parties such as SplitFish and, of course, major players – Nintendo's Wii Remote and Nunchuk, and Sony's PS Move and Navigation Controller. Now, Mad Genius is looking to up the ante with its new break-apart motion controller.

Mad Genius says the controller is capable of tracking movements as minute as 1/100 of an inch. A video demonstrates the controller being used in an unmodified version of Skyrim on Xbox 360, tracking the player's body movement to make the character move in the game world. A more practical application is splitting the controller apart to aim and fire a bow in-game.

Holding the two halves like a bow and arrow, the game automatically equips and begins aiming the bow. The control is so fine, according to Mad Genius, that players will actually have to hold their breath to steady their shots, lest a tiny movement knock them off target.

The motion-tracking system will work with any game on any platform, including even outmoded platforms such as the original PlayStation (though it's not clear how you would actually connect the two together). Mad Genius is planning to launch a Kickstarter to fund the final version of the controller, which will be wireless and, presumably, a bit sleeker.

FIFA 13 sold through 14.5 million units in fiscal year 2013, up 30 percent compared with FIFA 12 sales from the prior year. Net revenue from digital sales hit $200 million in adjusted, non-GAAP terms, an increase of 94 percent compared with FIFA 12 year-over-year. The entire FIFA franchise generated $350 million in digital net revenue in FY 2013, including sales from FIFA Online and FIFA World Class Soccer.

By Q3 2013, which ended on December 31, 2012, FIFA 13 clocked a total of 12 million sales.

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Over this "May the 4th be with you" weekend, the irrepressible Star Wars: Battlefront 3 once again returned from the grave with new footage and a live stream. "New" is a malleable word here, since all of this comes from a game that was canceled in 2008 and may have leaked in one form or another over the past five years.

The first occurrence of game footage was a livestream by PtoPOnline. According to Game Informer, ptoponline.com focuses on "coverage and streaming of pre-release games, betas, and canceled projects."

There was also some alpha build footage, reportedly from a reel by developer Free Radical made in November of 2008, that was posted on Vimeo by Blue_Monkey.

The Star Wars franchise is now a licensing opportunity for developers and publishers following the closure of LucasArts.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in.]

Best Buy has a pretty good sale going on this weekend. Several games have been marked down to $10, including Doom 3: BFG Edition, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Resistance 3, SSX and others. Games reduced to $8 include Wonderbook: Book of Spells (standalone), Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Rift.

There are also some less spectacular deals, like Gravity Rush, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Harvest Moon 3D and others for $30 each, or DMC: Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Rising for $40 apiece.

The Nintendo eShop is doing some spring cleaning, throwing a handful of games up for sale today through May 9: 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure, Dillon's Rolling Western, Pushmo, Fluidity: Spin Cycle and Tokyo Crash Mobs. Also on sale right now is Code of Princess, down from $40 to $30, and Level-5's Guild 01 collection is still cheap now through May 30.

Kirby's Adventure and Pushmo are each $5 (originally $7), Dillon's is $7 (originally $10), Fluidity is $8 (originally $11), and Tokyo Crash Mobs is $5 (originally $6). The Guild 01 collection includes Liberation Maiden and Crimson Shroud – each $5, down from $8 –​ and Aero Porter, which is $3, rather than the $5 standard.

Nintendo Weekly offers two mans this week. No, that's not a grammatitional error. Both Mega Man and Pac-Man arrive on the Wii U Virtual console for $5 apiece.

The 3DS will have its hands full with a burgeoning Balloon Fight and an attack by Bear Shark.

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It's hard to say for certain what a platform's last game will be, but it's pretty easy to guess what a platform's last noteworthy release will be. I'm sure the endless parade of impulse-buy, waggletastic Wii shovelware will continue to trickle out for a while yet, but the last significant Wii release for North America looks to be Pandora's Tower.

As the last of the three Operation Rainfall games brought over from Europe (via Japan), it was bound to garner plenty of attention, regardless of its quality. The good news is that Pandora's Tower deserves it.

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The free Rayman Legends Challenges app launches today on the Wii U eShop. Half demo and half conciliatory gesture, this exclusive app was promised after Ubisoft delayed the Wii U version to prepare a multiplatform release. The full game is due September 3.

On 3DS, the collection of NES Mega Man games grows with Mega Man 4. And Color Commando launches on DSiWare, a puzzle-platformer about placing blobs of paint around a level to neutralize same-color monsters.

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In an investor presentation, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata announced that Nintendo will skip the usual large-scale E3 press conference this year in favor of "a few smaller events that are specifically focused on our software lineup for the U.S. market."

One of these events will be for American distributors, with another closed event "for mainly the Western gaming media." Iwata noted that Nintendo is not planning to announce any new hardware at this E3, with showing off software the main focus.

While Nintendo is dropping a lot of mainstream press attention with this move, it makes a lot of sense for a company with the recent financial history of Nintendo to skip out on some expensive pageantry. Especially when the company makes E3-level announcements monthly, for a tiny fraction of the cost.

The Wii U shipped 3.45 million units worldwide as of March 31, a figure well short of the 4 million projected in January, itself adjusted from initial forecasts of 5.5 million. That means the Wii U only shipped around 390,000 units worldwide in the last three months.

In a financial statement, Nintendo said its console failed to "maintain the initial sales momentum" due to delays of subsequent games, and the company aims to remedy this in the second half of this year through to next year by "releasing key Nintendo titles." The company believes this'll help the Wii U attain its projected shipping figures of 9 million for the next fiscal year (April 1 2013 to March 31 2014).

Nintendo's fiscal year net profits came in at almost half the company's projections, down from a projected ¥14 billion to just over ¥7 billion, or around $71 million. The figure nonetheless represents significant turnaround from the ¥43 billion net loss posted for the previous fiscal year. Nintendo forecasts net profits of ¥55 billion for its next fiscal year.

3DS shipping figures continue to climb, with the handheld now at 31.09 million, up over a million in the last quarter. The Wii remains short of the 100M mark at 99.84 million. The Wii outperformed the Wii U in the last quarter, shipping 70,000 units more at 460,000.

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Nintendo is performing online maintenance for all its systems today as it prepares the Wii U's spring system update. The update, which will introduce the Virtual Console proper (among other things), may be fully launched by tomorrow according to a Facebook tease by Nintendo of America.

The extended maintenance is scheduled between 1PM PT today (4PM ET, 9PM UK) and 7PM PT (10PM ET, 3AM UK). The eShop and shopping channels for the Wii U, 3DS, Wii, and DS will be affected, so expect them to go down during those hours.

Dishonored slices off half of its price on Amazon this week, available for $30 for Xbox 360, PS3 or PC. Meanwhile, NBA 2K13 and Gears of War Judgment are both $40 as part of the weekly sale.

Outlet deals available now include Madden NFL 13 for PS3 for $29, and Xbox 360 version of Forza Horizon for $44, PS3's Battlefield 3 Premium Edition for $40 and Asura's Wrath for Xbox 360 for $18, plus quite a few more. Check out Amazon's weekly deals and outlet sales right here. Happy Sunday shopping.