In video game war, everyone is above average

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

When market research firm NPD Group issued its April sales data for video games Thursday, it seemed everyone was a winner. Microsoft had already rushed out with a statement claiming victory a day earlier, saying its Xbox 360 video game console was ‘the first gaming system to reach 10 million in U.S. console sales,’ ahead of Sony‘s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii. (Of course, the Xbox 360 came out a year before the Wii and the PS3.)

Nintendo also came out victorious, according to a news release issued hours before the NPD report, proclaiming that ‘Wii sits atop April U.S. sales.’ The Japanese game company sold 714,200 Wii devices, compared with 188,000 Xbox 360s and 187,100 PS3s.

‘PS3 continues blockbuster year,’ Sony, not to be outdone, trumpeted in the headline of its press statement. Sales of PS3 games grew 410% to more than 2 million units in April from a year earlier, Sony said. What’s more, 23.6% percent of PS3 owners bought copies of ‘Grand Theft Auto IV, while only 18.5% of Xbox 360 owners did so, Sony pointed out. Sony did not mention that, in raw numbers, the Xbox version of the game outsold the PS3 version by almost two to one.

And of course, the biggest winner was the game industry as a whole, which last month racked up a 47% spurt in sales compared with the same month a year ago. ‘The industry continues to set a blistering sales pace,’ said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

So they may not be getting gold medals, but nearly all players in the industry are reaping gold.

-- Alex Pham