14 DAY TRIAL // The NPD Group has released its figures for the hardware and software sales on the United States market for the month of March, with the Xbox 360 and Mass Effect 3 taking the number one positions for the period.
Overall, the industry has showed a decline of 26 percent when compared to the same period of 2011, with the industry reaching the value of 1.1 billion dollars (835.04 million Euro).
The biggest decline was that of the hardware market, which went down by 35 percent.
The Xbox 360 has once again led the chart, with 371,000 consoles sold to gamers, and both Sony and Nintendo have so far refused to make public the actual sales of the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo Wii and the new PlayStation Vita, which had its first full month on sale in the United States.
Anita Frazier, an analyst for the NPD Group, stated, “Hardware really slowed down this month and all systems saw a unit sales decline versus last March, and on an average sales per week basis, versus February 2012. That said, the high definition console systems fared better than many other hardware platforms.”
The software sector has also seen a decline of 26 percent when compared to March 2011.
For the month of March the top ten selling games at retail were:
1. Mass Effect 3 from BioWare and Electronic Arts 2. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City from Capcom 3. MLB 12: The Show from Sony 4. NBA 2K12 from Take Two 5. SSX from Electronic Arts 6. Street Fighter X Tekken from Capcom 7. Mario Party 9 from Nintendo 8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 from Activision Blizzard 9. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations from Namco Bandai 10. Major League Baseball 2K12 from Take Two.
Most analyst see the video game industry headed for a May rebound.