Wii Still Hot: April Sales Dwarf Competitors'

Mike Antonucci - San Jose Mercury News

Nintendo's Wii video-game console remained the red-hot choice of U.S. consumers in April, posting sales that dwarfed the competition from two machines, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, that had been expected to get big lifts from their tie-ins with the "Grand Theft Auto IV" game.

More than 714,000 Wiis were sold, and that followed 721,000 being sold in March. Just 188,000 Xbox 360s and a shade over 187,000 PS3s were sold in April, down from 262,000 and 257,000 in March.

It now seems possible that the Wii, with sales of more than 9.5 million units since its launch, next month will overtake the Xbox 360, which made its debut a year before the Wii but only has reached the 10.1 million mark. The PS3 launch-to-date total is roughly 4.3 million.

April's data was released today by the NPD Group, a market research firm. In the NPD calculations, April's sales cover the four-week period from April 6 to May 3, and March's sales covered the five-week period from March 2 to April 5.

The NPD figures showed that "Grand Theft Auto IV," an adult-oriented game available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles but not the Wii, sold 2.85 million copies between its April 29 release and May 3.

That corresponds closely to information released previously by the GTA IV publisher, Take-Two Interactive, which said the game sold 6 million copies in the United States and Europe through May 5. Those sales are believed to have been roughly even between the two markets,

although higher in the United States.

The Xbox 360 version of GTA IV led all game sales at 1.85 million, and the PS3 version was No. 3 at 1 million. In between, the latest major family-oriented release for the Wii, a new "Mario Kart," racked up sales of 1.12 million.

Nintendo also continued to generate strong results with its handheld game player, the DS. It sold almost 415,000 units (down from 698,000 in March), undoubtedly with help from the release of two closely linked Pokemon "Mystery Dungeon" games that each sold 202,000 copies.

The Wii, an industry phenomenon featuring a motion-sensitive remote control that simplifies the way many games are played, also benefited from continuing strong sales of "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," which sold 326,000 copies and has strong appeal to hard-core gamers.

There was widespread speculation that GTA IV would spur sales of Xbox 360s and PS3s because people who had yet to buy those consoles would now invest in them so they could play that particular game. Moreover, Microsoft and Sony were on record as saying their console sales jumped after the game's release.

But those late-month boosts were not enough to offset the slow pace of sales earlier in April. NPD analyst Anita Frazier said it's likely that the first rush of GTA IV buyers already were Xbox 360 or PS3 owners and the jury is still out on how continuing game sales will affect console sales.

"Those ongoing game sales may yet drive hardware sales," said Frazier, adding that it will take another month before a trend is clear.

Overall, said Frazier in a prepared statement, "The industry continues to set a blistering sales pace, and now shows a year-to-date increase of 31 percent over last year's record-setting revenues."

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