The NPD Group's official console gaming industry sales figures for the month of April are out and despite the lower sales total compared to March, last month saw the release of what will be the first of 2008's gaming blockbusters.  Grand Theft Auto IV barely launched before the end of last month, but it's has already shattered interactive entertainment industry records, and NPD has its official tally of the carnage it caused duuring the last five days of April alone.

First off, April's console hardware sales as a whole were down compared to March.  Only Nintendo's Wii managed to maintain momentum, selling over 700,000 units during both months.  The rest of the console platforms took a dive in sales, including the DS which took the biggest hit; sales for the handheld dropped by over 280,000 units.  However, the DS managed to stay in second place.  In fact, despite the overall drop in sales, the rankings for all the consoles otherwise stayed the same as they did during March.  The PlayStation Portable in particular continued to beat the Xbox 360, as well as Sony's other home console platforms including the PS3.

April's software top ten chart on the other hand sees not one, but three million sellers.  Technically two are Grand Theft Auto IV on its different platforms, but each form a one-two punch that's hard to ignore.  Particularly noteworthy is the popularity of the Xbox 360 version versus its PS3 brother; GTA IV sold approximately 850,000 units more on the 360.  Perhaps the prospect of exclusive downloadable content (DLC) proved over Xbox Live proved to be a bigger draw for GTA fans than expected!

Analysts and fanboys alike meanwhile expected the only game released during April which would provide anything even close to competition for GTA IV was Mario Kart Wii.  The Mario Kart series enjoys great tenure, and to its credit Mario Kart's first Wii entry fared quite well against Rockstar's latest and greatest.  It couldn't beat GTA IV of course, but it was the only other software title which sold over a million copies last month.  The rest of the software top ten didn't come close to selling even half a million units each.  Unfortunately that includes Super Smash Bros. Brawl, despite moving an estimated 2.7 million copies during March; as skeptical gamers may have speculated, sales for the Wii brawler fell sharply only after a month.

April 2008 US Games Industry Summary

Total sales - $1.23 billion USD
Console software - $654.7 million USD
Console hardware - $426.2 million USD
Console accessories - $154 million USD

April 2008 US Hardware Sales

1. Nintendo Wii - 714,000 units
2. Nintendo DS - 415,000 units
3. Sony PlayStation Portable - 193,000 units
4. Microsoft Xbox 360 - 168,000 units
5. Sony PlayStation 3 - 187,000 units
6. Sony PlayStation 2 - 124,000 units

April 2008 US Game Software Sales

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) - 1.85 million units
2. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 1.12 million units
3. Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3) - 1 million units
4. Wii Play Remote bundle (Wii) - 360,000 units
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) - 326,000 units
6. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (PS3) - 224,000 units
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness - 202,000 units
8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time - 202,000 units
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) - 152,000 units
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) - 141,000 units