Sales of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV have been nothing short of phenomenal, but did it sell hardware? According to the latest NPD figures for April, the answer is a blunt “no.”

NPD recorded that 187,100 PS3 consoles were sold in April, along with 188,000 Xbox 360 units. Looking at the previous month, both consoles pushed 257,000 and 262,000 units, respectively. Much better.

So what’s the deal? Why isn’t GTA IV moving hardware? EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich believes that the 360 and PS3 have saturated the market at their current price points.

Last month I stated that it is likely that both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 have saturated their market potential at their current price points; April’s results only reinforces that theory. Of course, it might be a little too soon to speculate that we can expect a price drop in the coming weeks or additional hardware SKUs (An Xbox 360 with Blu-ray capability) in the coming month, but if May’s hardware sales drop below the 50,000 units sold a week threshold, we can definitely expect something in terms of a change in strategy from both Microsoft and Sony.

It’s puzzling, that’s for sure. However, you have to consider that GTA IV launched a day before the end of April, which possibly did not give it enough time to make an impact on hardware sales. We’ll have to wait and see how both consoles perform in May.

Analyst: Underwhelming PS3 and 360 Sales May Force Price Cuts [GameDaily]

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