With video games remaining a category where consumers are least likely to cut their spending in coming months, according to The NPD Group, April saw softer sales compared to the same time period in 2008.

The dollar sales were down 17% from US$1.24 billion from April ’08, but industry analyst Anita Frazier remarks that the previous April realized a nearly 50% growth over April 2007 and that ‘this year’s performance still represents the second-best performance for the industry in the month of April, besting April 2007, which is the previous second-place holder, by 26 percent.’

Still, US$1.03 billion in dollar sales for this past April was nothing to sneeze at. And, with the recent introduction of Nintendo’s new handheld DSi, the NDS platform accounted for 31% of total industry unit sales this month across all categories. More than 827,000 DSi systems were sold that month, along with an additional 215,000 DS Lite systems, for a combined total of more than 1.04 million.

The PS2 also saw a notable performance since Sony lowered the price point to US$99 and when compared to March 2009’s sales rate, it almost doubled when comparing the two months on a same-week basis.

On the software side, Nintendo dominated the top five with four of its SKUs, including the Wii Fit with Balance Board, Pokemon Platinum Version (DS), Mario Kart with Wheel (Wii) and Play with Remote (Wii).