We'll make quick work of this month's NPD data, as it closely mirrors the previous month's data. This is the second month that the games market has dropped, down 17 percent again. Hardware sales are down eight percent, and software is worse off at 23 percent down. Mind you that it wasn't a terrible month, but numbers just aren't as strong as they were last year.

The DS did well in April with the launch of the DSi. Just over a million units were moved last month, more than all the other gaming systems combined. Wii sales are half of what they were this time last year, though. And it looks like the PS2 price drop helped: the oldie-but-goodie sold about twice what it did last year this time, and just barely trailed the sales of the Xbox 360 in April.

As far as games go, there's nothing exciting to talk about. Wii Fit was the top-seller. There were no other high-profile non-Nintendo releases other than The Godfather II, which ranked number 5  and 10 last month, with 155,000 (Xbox 360) and 91,000 (PS3) units sold respectively.

I don't know that May's numbers will look any healthier -- at least there were some stronger games in May. 

Hit the jump for the charts for April's NPD.

• DS – 1,040,000
• Wii – 340,000
• Xbox 360 – 175,000
• PS2 – 172,000
• PS3 – 127,000
• PSP – 116,000

• Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) – 471,000
• Pokémon Platinum (Nintendo, DS) - 433,000
• Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 210,000
• Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 170,000
• The Godfather II (Electronic Arts, 360) - 155,000
• Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, 360) - 122,000
• New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, DS) - 119,000
• Mario Kart DS (Nintendo, DS) - 112,000
• Guitar Hero Aerosmith (Acitvision Blizzard, 360) - 110,000
• The Godfather II (Electronic Arts, PS3) - 91,000