Gaming Industry Experiences Worst Month in Almost 10 Years

DualShockers

By Joel Taveras

Published May 17, 2010

Yes you just read that headline correctly, the gaming industry that we all know and love took a serious dive in the numbers department during the month of April. Normally on DualShockers we don't report too much in regards to NPD results and figures. I feel that if you don't own shares in these companies these numbers mean absolutely nothing to you and are used primarily to start fanboy flame wars. But last month was pretty bad. So just how bad was it? You need to read on to find out.

Hardware and Software both took a hit and plummeted for a combined 26%. Consoles went down a scary 36% fall bringing their total for the month down to $398.5 million. Software and accessories would suffer a similar fate as they would also hit low marks with software dropping 22% and accessories 9%, which in dollars translates to $249.3 and $118 million.

Can you guess what system suffered the biggest decline? I'll give you a hint it's small, and white and prints money. Ok, your still not sure. It start with "Nin" and ends with "tendo". That's right, the unstoppable Nintendo Wii suffered the worst month out of the three major console makers. Selling a whopping 50% units less than it did it in the previous month of March with 277,200 systems sold. Microsofts Xbox 360 would come in second with 185,400 units. And Sony fanboys can continue to mope once again as the PS3 comes out last for the month with 180,800.

So what lead to the decline? In a statement made by NPD research analyst Anita Frazier, she identifies the decline having to do with Easter being at the very beginning of April. Had it been in the middle of the month there would have been a jump of $55 million in sales. That doesn't make any sense to me but hey, I'm not an analyst. If you ask me I would have attributed to the lack of any good software, that's just me.

Speaking of software let's take a look at all the movers and shakers from the month of April below!