• Bloomberg News, Friday, May 15, 2009 1:15 PM

The video game industry saw its second consecutive month of slumping sales in April, led by a precipitous sale decline in Nintendo's popular Wii game console. According to NPD Group, which tracks video game sales, U.S. stores sold 340,000 Wiis in April, down 52% from 714,000 a year earlier. Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PS3 saw year-over-year sales declines of 7% and 32% respectively.

Earlier this month, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata warned that the company was "not optimistic" about demand in the U.S. market, in particular. After posting record first quarter profits, Nintendo on May 7th said sales would rise less than 1% to 26 million units sold in the year ending March 2010. "We think the market potential of Wii may have peaked out," Satoru Kikuchi, a Tokyo-based analyst at Deutsche Bank AG, wrote in a May 11 report. "We think the market will begin to lower expectations on Nintendo, which is likely to enter a period of profit decline."

Industry sales, which rose 19% last April, declined 17% this year, according to NPD. Software sales fell 23% to $510.7 million, while hardware sales fell 8% to $391.6 million. According to Bloomberg, the April decline came as U.S. retail spending unexpectedly dropped, hurt by rising unemployment and falling home values that forced consumers to reign in spending.

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