April 2010 NPD Sales Data

April 2010 was a horrendous month for video game sales. Hardware and software sales dramatically underperformed market expectations.

The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group.

• US Hardware in April 2010

  Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  Nintendo DS	440,800	599,500	-26.47%
  Nintendo Wii	277,200	425,400	-34.84%
  Xbox 360	185,400	265,800	-30.25%
  PLAYSTATION 3	180,800	225,300	-19.75%
  PlayStation Portable	65,500	98,500	-33.50%
  Total Hardware Units	1,149,700	1,614,500	-28.79%

• US Software in April 2010

  Rank	Title	Actual units	Expected units	% From Expected
  1	Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360)	486,100	483,700	+0.50%
  2	Pokemon SoulSilver (DS)	242,900	--	--
  3	New Super Mario Bros (Wii)	200,300	325,400	-38.44%
  4	Pokemon HeartGold (DS)	192,600	--	--
  5	God of War III (PS3)	180,300	271,600	-33.62%
  6	Wii Sports Resort (Wii)	179,000	227,100	-21.18%
  7	Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Xbox 360)	166,000	195,200	-14.96%
  8	Wii Fit Plus w/ Balance Board (Wii)	--	--	--
  9	Just Dance	144,000	--	--
  10	Super Street Fighter IV (PS3)	143,000	--	--
  	Total Software Sales	$398.5M	$549.5M	-27.48%

The market also tracked the sales of 2010 FIFA World cup South Africa (Xbox 360), Monster Hunter Tri (Wii), Final Fantasy XIII (PS3), and Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360), which did not make the top 10. These games will cash ou at 14.3 DKP. Quantum Theory (PS3) was not released in April 2010 and will be rolled back.

Where do the expected sales numbers come from?

The simExchange is the video game stock market. Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using fantasy money, players buy virtual stocks in video games they believe are under-predicting sales and short sell stocks they believe are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as "the Wisdom of the Crowd" and this system is known as a "prediction market." Sign up and play today.

About the predictions

Predictions on the simExchange should become more accurate over time as (1) the diversity of the pool of traders increases and as (2) more accurate players are rewarded with more virtual currency for their accuracy (thereby enabling them to form more predictions) and less accurate players lose virtual currency (thereby discounting their ability to form more predictions).