In the month of April, there were 180,800 PlayStation 3s sold in the United States, according to statistics released today by the NPD Group. Overall, the videogame hardware market was down, quite a bit. Nintendo was again the big winner with the DS selling 440,800 units and the Wii selling 277,200.
Microsoft and Sony continue to duke it out as the Xbox 360 sold 185,000 units, a little more than 4,000 more than the PS3. In total, hardware sales accounted for some $249.3 million USD in April, down by some 37% from last year.
The PSP sold 65,500 units, with the overall handheld market down by quite a bit from the year prior.
"The portable side of the industry contributed more than its fair share to the industry decline," notes Anita Frazier, quotable NPD analyst. "The portable business across hardware, software and accessories accounted for 25% of total industry dollar sales in April but declines in portable sales compared to April ’09 accounted for 61% of the total industry decrease."
"Of the platforms that declined versus year ago, the NDS accounts for 71% of the decline. Keep in mind that the NDS sold over 1 million units last April. Even with the decline, the DS was the best-selling hardware system for the month," Frazier says. "Among the platforms that increased over last year, the PS3 and the Xbox 360, the PS3 accounted for 84% of the total unit sales increase."
Here are the numbers:
* Nintendo DS – 440,800
* Wii – 277,200
* Xbox 360 – 185,000
* PlayStation 3 – 180,800
* PSP – 65,500
* PlayStation 2 – ???
It should be noted that according to the NPD Group, the DS will overtake the PlayStation 2 as the best-selling hardware system of all time come October or November. The NPD Group will no longer publish PS2 sales data.