Video Game Sales Plummet 17% in April?

From PC World: So there's bad news, and then there's some more bad news. First, the bad news: April video game sales are poised to clock in around $550 million, down 17% year-over-year, says Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter.

The other bit of bad news is actually kind of good news, depending on your vantage. The bad bit's that we're once more looking at an apple-to-oranges sales month. Guitar Hero: Metallica? The Godfather II? Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor? Escape the Museum? That's the "blockbuster" competition up against last year's Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart Wii, which together rang up about 4 million units for $325 million and a whopping 36% cut of April 2008's total haul. The good bit's that that's an argument against April's downturn being purely economy-driven. As WM puts it, "We believe that the decline is more attributable to difficult year-over-year comparisons (which improve after July) than to overall weakness in the economy," adding that the company believes video games software remains "recession-resistant."

Who's hurting most? Domestic PS2 software sales continue to plummet like a piano dropped off a cargo plane, down 60% year-over-year — so much so that WM says it's dropping PS2 software sales from its subsequent monthly reports.

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