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NPDs: Nintendo tops US hardware chart

Splinter Cell tops software listing.

Tom Bramwell avatar
News by Tom Bramwell Former Editor-in-Chief
Updated on
15 comments

Nintendo's DS and Wii consoles continued to outsell their rivals in the US during April, but game sales were down 11 per cent year on year and hardware sales down a whopping 20 per cent.

The NPD Group, which compiles the data, said the decline was the worst year-on-year dip since July 2009.

Splinter Cell: Conviction topped software sales, shifting nearly 500,000 units. Last month that wouldn't have been enough to make the top five - with leading game God of War III having done 1.1m units.

The latest Pokemon twins, SoulSilver and HeartGold, did 242,900 and 192,600 respectively - all the more impressive when you consider they wracked up 1.02m and 761,200 respectively last month. There's still no official word on why Americans appear to prefer silver to gold.

The DS, then, managed 440,800 units, while the Wii did 277,200. The Xbox 360 and PS3 shifted just over 180,000 apiece. The poor old PS2, meanwhile, has been delisted! This despite the fact it sold 7.3m units worldwide last year.

Here's the software top 10 for April 2010:

  1. Splinter Cell: Conviction - 486,100
  2. Pokemon SoulSilver - 242,900
  3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii - 200,300
  4. Pokemon HeartGold - 192,600
  5. God of War III - 180,300
  6. Wii Sports Resort
  7. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  8. Wii Fit Plus
  9. Just Dance
  10. Super Street Fighter IV

And here's the hardware:

  1. DS - 440,800
  2. Wii - 277,200
  3. Xbox 360 - 185,400
  4. PS3 - 180,800
  5. PSP - 65,500

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