According to industry analyst NPD Group, US video games' year-on-year sales plunged almost 17 percent in April, marking the second successive monthly fall! As compared to the month-before sales figures, the April sales tumbled 30 percent.

NPD said that the video game industry reported $1.03-billion revenue in April, as against the year-before figures of $1.24 billion.

While game software sales for the month dropped 23 percent to $510.7 million; hardware sales fell 8 percent to $391.6 million; and accessories' sales were down 15 percent.

Speaking specifically of sales of different gaming consoles, NPD data shows that the Nintendo Wii was the top-seller in April too, though its sales nosedived more than 50 percent to 340,000 units; Microsoft's Xbox ranked second with 7 percent fall to 175,000 units; while Sony's PS2 was in third slot, followed by the PS3.

In a report, NPD analyst Anita Frazier has cautioned that the April figures do not imply the 'softening' of the industry, particularly because "April 2009 is being compared against a month - April 2008 - that realized nearly 50 percent growth over April 2007."

Frazier added: "While the continued difficult economic environment is a factor to consider, our monthly consumer spending indicator study still shows that video games is the category that consumers tell us they're least likely to cut their spending on in coming months."