Video Game Sales Off In April [NPD Reports Games Sold Poorly In April, Is The Video Game Industry Still In Recession?]

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We’ve seen some signs that the consumer technology industry is coming/has come out of the worldwide economic recession. Intel and AMD are selling lots of processors and posting record earnings and Apple is selling overpriced iPads. Despite some big sales numbers from some big games, many consider the game industry to still be in a recession and poor April numbers didn’t help.

Sales for video games were down 26% in April, NPD says. This was the sharpest month-to-month sales decline since July 2009. They went on to say this time last year, video game sales made $1 billion in April while this year, the only made $766 million. The WSJ says pretty simply, “The weak videogame industry showed no signs recovering.”

Not to disagree with the preeminent financial newspaper, but does the video game industry need recovering? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (released just last year) sold over 14 million copies, making it the third-best selling game in history. The PlayStation 3 had record sales last year, and is finally profitable on a per unit basis for Sony. And don’t even bring up the Nintendo DS, which is closing in on the PS2 as the best selling game platform of all time.

But game sales are still off their all-time highs from a few years ago – and now, Wall Street is worried about the affect that free and cheap casual games (like you’d find on Facebook or an iPhone) will have on triple-A premium games (like your Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2).

Let’s not forget that game selection has a large roll to play in all this. In March 2010, six undeniable triple-A titles were released (Final Fantasy XIII; God of War III; Command & Conquer 4; Metro 2033; Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening; Just Cause 2) while in April, only one such game was released (Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction).

So, we’re not so convinced that the game industry is still in a recession, or that April was a horrible month for sales. But sales numbers were down. Take it as you will.

Image Credit: gamedeals.ca