Nintendo Shares Drop As Wii U.S Sales Dip News

Satoru Iwata and the naysayers of doom and gloom appeared to be right, as the release of March's NPD figures revealed a 17% drop in Wii sales for the month compared to last year.

Sales of Wii dropped to 601,000 units, representing the first decline in 14 months since supply issues hampered sales back in January 2008.  As a result of the drop, Nintendo's share price dropped by 6.6% to close at 26,180 yen, representing the biggest decline since February 2nd.

"Our launch schedules are more spread out so we're going to have these tough comparisons month to month," Fils-Aime said in an interview yesterday. "But if you look at the overall trend of our business, it continues to be very healthy."

During the period sales of the Xbox 360 stood at 330,000 units, representing a 26% increase compared to last year.  Sales of the PlayStation3 slipped by 15% to 218,000 units.

Sales of the Nintendo DS stood at 563,000 units, representing a decline of 19%, although Nintendo did point towards the successful launch of the DSi during April as an indicator of future performance. 

The PSP faired poorly with sales of 168,000 units during March 2009.