U.S. market researcher and data provider, the NPD Group, has released its most recent set of figures for game-related sales and Nintendo has now gone from 'resurgent' to 'totally bloody dominant'.

Hardware sales for April breakdown as follows:

Nintendo DS - 471,000
Nintendo Wii - 360,000
Sony PlayStation 2 - 194k
Sony PSP - 183,000
Microsoft Xbox 360 (including Elite) - 174,000
Nintendo Game Boy Advance - 84,000
Sony PlayStation 3 - 82,000

Yes, the GBA did outsell the PS3 in April. As if this piece of humiliation wasn't enough for Nintendo, its overall dominance of the market is also unquestionable with 59% of console sales putting Microsoft's 28% and Sony's 13% into sharp relief.

Good news for Sony comes in the fact that both the PS2 and PSP managed to outsell Microsoft's Xbox 360. Just how long the Japanese company can rely on its 'last-gen' machine to maintain sales must be the question keeping senior Sony execs awake. From Microsoft's perspective, however, if it really does plan to go into profit with its loss-making games division next year, it surely can't simply rely on Halo 3 hype to sell more hardware.

Overall, the industry saw sales grow by 20% compared to April 2006 across hardware and software, putting somewhat of a lie to the feeling that 2007 could be a poor year. However, April was still a way off March's £1.1-billion (£558m).

Total revenues for April were $838.6-million (£425m). Total software were sales down by 1% compared to 2006, to the value of $389.8-million (£198m). Sales of console (not handheld) games drove the total down, dropping by 19% with a value of $248.3-million (£126m).

Handheld games upped the total, however, with a 61% rise (year-on-year again) to $141.5 million (£72m).

Software sales were lead by the DS and Wii, with two 360 offerings, four PS2 games, nothing on PSP and, 'strangely' no GBA titles in the top 10.


1. Pokemon Diamond - DS - Nintendo - 1.045m

2. Pokemon Pearl - DS - Nintendo — 712k

3. Super Paper Mario - Wii - Nintendo — 352k

4. Wii Play w/remote - Wii—Nintendo — 249k

5. Guitar Hero 2 - 360 — Activision — 197k

6. Guitar Hero 2 - PS2 — Activision — 142k

7. Spider-Man 3 - 360 — Activision — 117k

8. Spider-Man 3 - PS2 — Activision — 105k

9. God of War II - PS2 —Sony — 101k

10. MLB '07: The Show - PS2 — Sony — 79k

Reuters reports SCEA's Senior Director of Corporate Communications, David Karaker as commenting, "The PlayStation 3 was obviously a little bit flat during the month. We didn't have a lot of hardware drivers out during the month, we didn't have any first-party titles. But we've got a pretty robust library coming for the rest of this year... so I think you're going to see a real pick-up as these games start coming out."

Molly O'Donnell, senior group manager for Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, bigged-up the Elite saying,"That's a very strong number for us in the month of April. A lot of this growth we think is fueled by our new Elite console."

While Nintendo's ever quotable GameCube murderess and vice president of marketing, Perrin Kaplan, tried to be blase about owning the industry, commenting, "The demand has just blown the doors off. We're chugging along as fast as we can."

Well, stop 'chugging along' and get some Wiis over in Europe, Perrin!