<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/ec330af9-132b-4016-81b3-e18f06dc7609/21C0D268-0287-43E9-915C-DDB435356E23/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1676224" href="http://www.wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1676224" style="font-size: 11px;">www.wtop.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.wtop.com/?nid=108&sid=1676224"><P>NEW YORK (AP) - Lacking the big hits that made the year-ago period a standout, U.S. video game sales dropped sharply in April for the second month in a row as customers continued to watch their wallets.</p> <P>Market researcher NPD group said late Thursday that retail sales of game software, hardware and accessories dropped 17 percent last month, to $1.03 billion. Software sales plunged 23 percent to $510.7 million, more than many analysts had expected. Hardware sales, meanwhile, declined 8 percent to $391.6 million.</p> <P>While the results show the gaming industry is not immune to the recession, a big culprit for the year-over-year decline was last year's launch of the blockbuster "Grand Theft Auto IV." The game hit store shelves on April 29, 2008 and raked in more than $500 million within a week. That and the launch of Nintendo's "Mario Kart Wii," another very popular game, made for a spring that game makers have not been able to match this year.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/21C0D268-0287-43E9-915C-DDB435356E23/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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