While April sales might appear soft on the surface, it's important to remember that April is being compared against a month (April 2008) that realized nearly 50 percent growth over April 2007. This year's performance still represents the second-best performance for the industry in the month of April, besting April 2007, which is the previous second-place holder, by 26 percent.
Given how strong the growth was in the industry last year, there are still some months ahead where year-over-year comparisons may be difficult, but May should be an easier comparison than the last two months have been.
Despite being compared against last year, when several big title releases drove both software sales and hardware acquisition, April 2009 was down only 5 percent on a unit sales basis, with the remainder of dollar sales decline coming from reduced average selling prices. Easter fell in April this year which undoubtedly helped cushion the decline.
While the continued difficult economic environment is a factor to consider, our monthly Consumer Spending Indicator study still shows that video games is the category that consumers tell us they're least likely to cut their spending on in coming months.
The big story for the month is the performance of portable game hardware sales as propelled by the release of Nintendo's DSi. The NDS platform accounted for 31 percent of total industry unit sales this month across all categories.
Also notable is the performance of the PS2 which is now at the budget-friendly price point of $99. Compared to March 2009, the PS2 sales rate almost doubled when comparing the two months on a same-week basis. This is a testament to the impact a price reduction can have on hardware acquisition, with price being only second to compelling new content as a catalyst for hardware sales.
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. It is important to remember that last April, Wii hardware sales were fueled by two huge new titles: Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart. Taking that into account, Wii unit sales are still very strong and only followed the DS this month in terms dollar and unit sales contribution to total industry sales.
April would have been a great month to release a big new game because there weren't a lot of high profile new releases. 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.
The number of new releases this month is fairly comparable to what was introduced last April, but GTA IV (on both PS3 and the 360) sold nearly 1 million more units last April than the entire top 10 list did this year. April 2008 also featured the release of Mario Kart for Wii, which has remained a top-selling game for this past year, and is on this month's top 10 list as well. This really illustrates the impact of comparing against a month when there were several new blockbuster titles new to the market.
Comparisons in May will still be closely watched since this marks the anniversary of the release of Wii Fit. It's going to be interesting to watch how the heavily-promoted EA Sports Active performs as it literally "kicks it up a notch" in terms of bringing fitness "play" to the console games market.
Other new releases to watch in May include Terminator Salvation, Patapon 2, Fallout 3, InFAMOUS, and UFC Undisputed among others. May sales will include titles released through May 30th.
