New York, NY–The sales gap between the Nintendo Wii video game console and Sonys competing PlayStation 3 widened during April, according to industry performance figures released on May 17.
The NPD Group reported that, during April, American consumers bought 360,000 Wii consoles. That was more than four times the 82,000 PlayStation 3 consoles sold.
Nintendo’s Wii sports a unique handheld controller
The ratio has widened from the first three months of the year, when the Wii outsold Sonys new console 2 to 1.
During April, Microsoft sold 174,000 of its Xbox 360 game consoles, NPD reported.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 has sold as well as expectedThe sales figures indicate that Nintendo has continued momentum since it introduced the Wii late last year. At the same time, Sony, which introduced the PlayStation 3 around the same time, continues to struggle to build its own momentum, in part because of its higher price, industry analysts said.
The Wii costs $249, while the PlayStation 3 costs $499 or $599, depending on the model. The Xbox 360 costs $299 or $399, depending on the model.
Over all, NPD reported, Nintendo has sold 2.5 million Wii consoles in the United States, compared with sales of 1.3 million for the PlayStation 3 and 5.4 million for the Xbox 360, which went on sale in November 2005.
Sony continues to own the second best-selling game console — not the PlayStation 3 but its predecessor, the PlayStation 2. In April, it sold 194,000 units, for a total of around 38 million in its lifetime.
