Matt Matthews offers up in-depth analysis of this month's NPD stats. Here you'll find new perspective on the launch of GTA IV, in a historical framework. Also, detailed insight into the strange twists and turns in the hardware race. If you only read one feature this month, make sure it's this one...

Expectations ran high Thursday as the NPD Group released its figures for April 2008 videogame sales. Both Sony and Microsoft representatives had spoken publicly about increases in hardware sales alongside the release of Grand Theft Auto 4. The actual figures were shockingly low: neither the Xbox 360 nor the PlayStation 3 had sold more than 190,000 units during the April period.

Even more amazing, the Nintendo Wii had sold in excess of 700,000 systems for the month. As we tour the April 2008 numbers for hardware and software, we'll cover the overall console race, possible price drops, historical perspective on the launch figures for Grand Theft Auto 4, and try to estimate how much of the market value we can attribute to each of the big three – Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.

The Hardware Scene

Forget Niko Bellic. The real badass in this business is still Wii. It is difficult to overstate the amazing hardware numbers that Nintendo's Wii is posting this year. With 714,000 systems sold during April 2008, it is selling at historically high rates for the mid-year period. For comparison 770,000 Xbox 360 systems were sold during November 2007 – the system's third best monthly total ever – and yet the Wii is hitting those kinds of numbers in April. The PlayStation 3 has only sold more than 700,000 systems in a month once since its launch, in December 2007.

Since March 2008 was a five-week reporting period for NPD and April was a four-week period, it is helpful to convert the monthly figures to weekly averages. The figures for the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 are shown in the graph below, starting with April 2007.
 

As the graph above shows, the Wii moved nearly 179,000 systems per week during April, up 23.8% from March and up 98.4% from April 2007. During the same period, the weekly sales rate for the PlayStation 3 dropped below 47,000, a decrease of 9% from the rate in March but up 128% from last year. Sales of the Xbox 360 decreased over 10% from March, to 47,000 systems per week, although Microsoft's sales did increase 8% year-on-year.

 
The last four months show the stark difference between the fortunes of the so-called HD consoles and the Nintendo Wii. (This is just a detail view of the previous graph.)
 

 
Weekly rates for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 increased slightly from January to February, but have fallen in both March and April. Previously Microsoft had cited hardware shortages for its diminished sales, but it seems unlikely that that explanation is still operative for April. During this same period the Wii has increased its sales rate for three months running.

Last month this column showed a linear model fitted to the sales data for the three newest consoles. By that model, the Nintendo Wii was on track to definitively surpass the Xbox 360 by the end of 2008. However, the surge in Wii sales and concurrent slowdown in Xbox 360 sales may have pushed that date forward significantly. The following graph shows how the installed bases of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii have grown relative to each other since their respective launches.
 

As of the end of April, the Xbox 360 leads the Wii by only 570,000 systems. Given recent sales rates for each of the two consoles, the Wii could lead the Xbox 360 in the United States as early as June. Understandably, the PlayStation 3 is quite far behind the Wii, but it is not making much headway relative to the Xbox 360 either. Since the beginning of 2008, the PlayStation 3 has gained only 60,000 units relative to Microsoft's console.