"The April sales results are baffling to us," he began. "The dollar sales level of $399 million is the lowest since May 2007, when this generation was barely underway, and is the weakest April result since 2005, when console software sales totaled only $6 billion for the full year. The sequential decline of 54% is the greatest in the 11 years that we have been tracking monthly data (except for December-January declines), dwarfing the previous record of 42% set in March-April 2002. For the first 13 weeks of 2010, video game software sales averaged just under $162 million; for the four weeks of April, they averaged just under $100 million."

"It’s easy to blame the lineup, which was quite light (Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell Conviction was the only AAA title, and it was an Xbox 360 exclusive), but the results suggest something is terribly wrong,"

“We do not believe that core gamers suddenly shifted allegiance to Facebook or iPhone games in April, nor do we believe that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 online play increased dramatically during April. As we cannot explain the reasons for the shortfall, we can only conclude that April was a fluke, with many core gamers enjoying recently purchased games and looking forward to new releases coming out in May.”