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April was a very good month for the video game industry, with sales up 20 percent compared to a year earlier.

According to industry analyst The NPD Group, total U.S. video game industry sales came in at $961.2 million in April, up 20 percent from $802.4 million in April 2010.

Software led the way, NPD reported, with sales up 26 percent from a year earlier. In a release accompanying the firm's monthly report, analyst Anita Frazier pointed out that April was the first month since November of last year that video game software saw jumps in … Read more

Though the consumer PC market may be in the doldrums, you can't pin the blame on the iPad, at least according to the folks at research firm NPD Group.

Many analysts have attributed the latest slump in portable PC sales to cannibalization by the iPad, claiming that consumers are opting for the popular tablet instead of buying notebooks and Netbooks. But in a report issued yesterday, NPD's Stephen Baker disagrees, saying that the rate of cannibalization has actually dropped in recent months.

Surveying Apple iPad owners in March, NPD's "Apple iPad Owner Study II" report found that only 14 percent of early iPad buyers (those who've owned one six months or more) chose an iPad instead of a PC. And over the recent holiday season, that number dropped to 12 percent, according to Baker.

Looking further, the cannibalization of Netbooks by the iPad has actually fallen by 50 percent among recent iPad buyers compared with the earlier adopters. Overall, more than 75 percent of the people polled said they bought an iPad without any intention of buying anything else.

So if the iPad isn't the culprit, what's to blame for the downturn in PC sales? Baker looks a bit farther back in time.… Read more

Games for mobile devices now account for almost half of all the game downloads, according to an NPD Group report released today.

Even most of the gamers who use a dedicated console to play online are spending the largest chunk of their change on games for mobile devices. The rest of their game funds are going toward titles downloaded for PCs, full consoles, portable consoles, and other systems.

"Mobile gaming represents one of the fastest growing segments of the digital games market, and potential for future growth remains strong as more consumers are using smartphones for games of all types, including the increasingly popular mobile game apps," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement.

The surge in spending on games for mobile devices is taking a toll on the amount of money spent on physical games, though not dramatically, reported NPD. Among those gamers who bought a mobile game over the past three months, 60 percent said they're spending the same amount of money on console and portable games, but 40 percent said they're spending less on physical games.

Among gamers asked to decide between buying a physical game and a digital game (assuming the price and other factors were the same), 75 percent said… Read more

As Apple and Verizon's quarterly earnings noted, iPhone 4 sales have been brisk. How brisk? A new report put out by the NPD Group earlier today put Apple in third place in U.S. smartphone sales during the first quarter of this year.

Apple came in behind Samsung and LG, but did better than HTC, Motorola, and Research In Motion. During the quarter, NPD says Apple nabbed 14 percent of sales, due in large part to the launch of the iPhone on Verizon's network in February.

"Apple and Verizon had a very successful launch of the iPhone 4, which allowed the iPhone to expand its market share that was previously held back by its prolonged carrier exclusivity with AT&T," said Ross Rubin, NPD's executive director of industry analysis in a statement.

Rubin said some of that growth "came at the expense of the Android OS" even though phones running Google's mobile phone OS made up half of the devices sold in the three months counted.

According to NPD's data, this was the first time Android's overall sales shrunk, going down to 50 percent from 53 percent the previous quarter. RIM's BlackBerry OS share also dropped to 14 percent of sales, down from 19 percent the previous quarter. Eating into those numbers was Apple, with iOS jumping 9 points to rest at 28 percent of smartphone sales, due to combined sales of the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS, both of which NPD includes in the top five sellers. … Read more

3D glasses are a double-edged sword for TV manufacturers. According to NPD's 3D 360° Monitor, an aversion to wearing glasses is the second most popular reason consumers give for not wanting to purchase a 3D TV. But for those who do buy 3D TVs, glasses represent one of the best accessory sale opportunities TV manufacturers have had since the flat-panel mount. Ring up a family pack of four glasses and you can easily reach the price of what some manufacturers charge for a flat-panel 2D television by itself.

Indeed, rather than treat glasses as a throwaway, Samsung recently revamped its 3D glasses, cramming an impressive amount of technology into a wearable product 25 percent lighter than its predecessor.

The electronics giant has added a circular frame that now easily grasps around various head sizes, enables a brighter 3D picture, accommodates prescriptions, switches to Bluetooth, and adds a charging gauge, all while keeping the price to about $100 per pair.

But what if there were a way to sell an accessory to go with those accessories? Samsung is taking a crack at just that, introducing a product at CES and showing it once again at the IFA Global Press Conference in Alicante, Spain.

It's a $200 black "top hat" charger--so nicknamed for its cylindrical shape centered atop a base plate about a third of the way from its bottom--that enables owners to inductively charge up to four pairs of Samsung's new, lighter-weight 3D glasses. The high-tech spectacles surround the glossy cylinder, one atop the next, in a spiraling statue of tolerated technology. … Read more

Here's some more data that shows Web TV still has a long way to go before unseating DVD and Blu-ray discs in the home.

In a survey of consumers in March by The NPD Group, the research firm found people "are still using DVDs and Blu-ray discs to watch movies more than all digital-video options combined." In the past three months, 77 percent of consumers reported watching a movie on a DVD or BD, which is unchanged from last year.

The survey of the more than 9,600 people found that 78 percent of home-video budgets were … Read more

The video game industry had a mixed March as hardware sales were up thanks in part to the popularity of the Nintendo DS, but software sales took a steep dive, according to the latest data from NPD.

For the month, game console sales rose to $494.5 million, a gain of 12 percent from $440.6 million in the year-ago period. Sales of video game accessories also showed strong growth, rising 13 percent to $241.3 million from $214.3 million a year ago. NPD attributed the upturn to demand for Nintendo's DS, which was the top-selling console in … Read more

Point-and-shoot digital cameras have been struggling. According to NPD's Retail Tracking Service, in 2010, the highly penetrated devices declined 5 percent in units.

On March 16 at the Samsung Experience product showcase in New York, the digital camera market took a baby step toward addressing the Web-based photo-sharing capabilities of smartphones when Samsung formally introduced the Wi-Fi-equipped, social network-savvy SH100 that was first announced at CES. Within a week, though, digital cameras were back to feeling the heat.

At a CTIA Wireless expo event punctuated by the repeated wearing and removing of 3D glasses and market information from DisplaySearch and In-Stat, Sprint and HTC announced the EVO 3D. The handset marks a significant upgrade to the very successful EVO 4G, the first WiMax smartphone announced at last year's CTIA.

NPD recently cited the EVO 4G as the best-selling large-screen handset in 2010. The EVO's 3D auto stereoscopic display can accommodate the relatively rare 3D movies and the even more rare 3D Android games, but what partners HTC and Sprint talked up was the potential for the smartphone's dual lenses to capture 3D photos and videos, an area of high interest to consumers, according to NPD's 3D 360 Monitor.

There are some significant limitations imposed by the handset's parallax barrier display overlay enabling the 3D. For example, the effect disappears when the phone is in portrait mode. However, unlike other cameras that can generate 3D photos with a single lens, the EVO 3D can capture HD video in 3D. And while Sprint did not announce subsidized pricing for the handset, it is likely to come in closer to the $200 of the original EVO 4G than the $400 or more many retailers charge for the Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D W1. According to NPD's 3D 360 Monitor, only 2 percent of consumers are aware of the existence of 3D digital cameras. … Read more

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the bestselling game released in the U.S. since 1995, a new report from NPD claims.

The music title has grossed sales of nearly $831 million since its launch in 2007, the research firm reported. It bested Call of Duty: Black Ops and Wii Fit, which took the second and third spots with $787 million and $736 million in total sales, respectively. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Rock Band rounded out the top five. NPD's sales figures were not adjusted to inflation.

Guitar Hero III's success in the U.… Read more