Even with Easter's early occurrence this year causing fewer gift-giving purchases, there's no two ways about it -- game sales were down in a major way this April compared to last year. The biggest revenue drop came via a precipitous 42% drop in software sales, with $292.1 million in sales coming in this April compared to $502.1 million a year prior. NPD's Anita Frazier explained the drop, saying "Physical retail content sales reflect a very light release schedule in terms of the amount of compelling new games.  Last April, the top seven titles outsold the top-selling title this year, and, simply stated, there were notably fewer new market introductions.  I think it’s a simple as that because when we see compelling content come into the market, the games are still selling as well as ever – we just saw a lot less this April as compared to last" 

The high-profile content released over the month did seem to stay true to Frazier's word, as Prototype 2, Kinect Star Wars, and The Witcher 2 landed on the top 10 sales chart in their debut month (with late March launch Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 performing well, too). Here's the top 10-selling titles for April 2012:

1 - Prototype 2 (360, PS3)
2 - Kinect Star Wars (360)
3 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
4 - Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 (360, PS3)
5 - NBA 2K12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PC, PS2)
6 - The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings (360, PC)
7 - Mario Party 9 (Wii)
8 - Mass Effect 3 (360, PS3, PC)
9 - Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360, PS3)
10 - MLB 12: The Show (PS3, PSV)

On the hardware front, the NPD stated that system sales were down 32% from $279.9 million to 189.7 million, but offered little in the way of individualized system sales figures. Xbox's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb provided a bit of insight into Xbox sales for the month, noting that the system sold 236,000 units in April, taking an even larger share of the market with 47% of systems sold during the month. That (and the game's software ranking) was likely largely due to the Kinect Star Wars bundle. In fact Frazier noted that despite the many system price drops over the last year, the average amount spent on new systems last month was higher than it was in April 2011, a fact attributed to the bundle's higher price tag.

What do you think of this month's sales figures? Where do you see May's heavy hitters like Max Payne 3 and Ghost Recon landing?

SOURCE: The NPD Group - April '12 U.S. VG industry retail sales [Press Release]