Retail video game sales slipped 4% in the U.S. in March, reports the NDP, by way of the Los Angeles Times. The software side is the root of this, as they say sales of video and computer games fell 16% to $735.4 million, compared with $875.7 million a year earlier. Hardware sales were up 12% to $494.5 million in March, driven by sales of the 3DS, Kinect, and Move controllers. The article acknowledges that the software slippage is in part explainable by the continued shift to digital distribution: "The silver lining for the game industry may be that consumers aren't cutting back their overall spending on games. Instead, they may be shifting their spending away from games and consoles sold at retails stores and toward buying "apps" for mobile devices such as Apple's iPad, playing online social games or buying games they can download to consoles or computers -- all sales that are not included in Thursday's figures."