NPD Group Releases April, 2008 U.S. Console Sales Numbers

 

NPD has released their console sales numbers for the U.S., for April, 2008.  The next-gen console sales for the month were:

XBox 360: 188,000 

PS3: 187,100

Wii: 714,200

The Wii continues to sell at an astounding rate, clobbering both Sony and Microsoft's offerings in system sales.  Nintendo has definitely proven themselves the comeback kid of this generation.

Though Microsoft is "officially" excited as they have now passed the 10 million system sold mark in the U.S., both Sony and Microsoft have to be concerned that they didn't get more system sales out of the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.  Of course, this data only includes the first five days of that games' release, so its very possible that a system sales bump will occur next month, but its still rather disconcerting.

The above graph shows how well each of the three next-gen systems sold by month following release.  We're now at the one and a half year mark for both the PS3 and the Wii and we can definitely see some trends emerging.

First of all, all those who predicted that the novelty of the Wii would quickly fade, were shown to be very, very wrong.  The system has sold at an insane rate, trampling the trend lines for both other systems.  The PS3 continues to trail the XBox 360's U.S. trendline slightly, though it has been making a slight comeback lately.

Obviously, the XBox 360 has been out a year longer than the other consoles, so in the interests of fairness, here is a chart that shows the total sales of the consoles over their lifetimes.

As I mentioned before, the Xbox 360 has now passed 10 million units sold in the U.S., but with the Wii literally right behind it, that bulletpoint won't mean much by next month.  The PS3, meanwhile, has passed the 4 million system mark in the U.S., but has a long way to go to catch up with the other two.

While having 4 million PS3s in the U.S. is GREAT for the Blu-ray format, as a gaming machine Sony still has some work to do convincing U.S. gamers that the PS3 is as great a gaming machine as it is a media player.  With the first AAA title of the year for the PS3 just released (GTA IV), sales should be picking up in upcoming months, with the release of platform-exclusive titles such as Haze, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Final Fantasy XII.