It"s more bad news in terms of the sales of games in the US in retail outlets. Gamesindustry International reports that, according to data from the NPD Group, the total amount of revenue for US game sales (hardware, software and peripherals) came in at $630.4 million, down a whopping 32 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.
This is the fourth straight month that has seen double digital percentage drops for retail game sales. Game software sales alone went down by 42 percent, with revenues of $307.2 million. Game hardware revenue numbers were down 32 percent, totaling $189.7 million.
Activision"s open world action game sequel Prototype 2, which was released in the last week of April for the Xbox 360 and PS3, ended up as the number one best selling game in US retail stores in April. Kinect Star Wars, the Xbox 360 exclusive title, was second, followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
The NPD Group estimated that if other game revenues were taken into account (sales of used games, game rentals, downloadable games, DLC packs, and others), revenues for the game industry would be $1 billion for the month of April.
As they always do, Microsoft offered some more information on sales of its Xbox 360 console for the past month on its official blog. The company said that it sold 236,000 consoles in the US in April, again topping the game console list. However, that number is down compared to the 297,000 units of the Xbox 360 the company said it sold in April 2011.