14 DAY TRIAL // The recession in the United States doesn't seem to affect in any way the videogame industry. As the NPD rolls out the software and the hardware sales charts related to the month of March growth over 2007 stands at an impressive 27%. It seems that most of this growth can be directly attributed to the way the Nintendo Wii is drawing both long-time gamers and casual players with its blend of accessibility, innovation and easy control.
On the hardware side, the chart is very similar to what Michael Patcher predicted regarding sales. The Wii sold around 721,000 units in March, almost 140,000 more than it sold the month before. The Nintendo DS takes second place with a similarly impressive number of 698,000 handhelds sold, over 100,000 more than last month. Third spot went to the PlayStation Portable with sales that jumped some 50,000 to 297,000 overall in March.
When it comes to the big console war between Microsoft and Sony, it seems that the Xbox has again managed to pull ahead, if only slightly. The Xbox 360 has sold 262,000 units in March, which is around 5,000 more than the PlayStation 3 with 257,000 units moved in the same timeframe. The PlayStation 2 is still selling well, aided by the number of titles that the console has in its back catalog, with 216,000 consoles shipped to gamers.
Anita Frazier, who is an analyst for the NPD, said: "Super Smash Brothers Brawl along with a greater supply of inventory helped the Wii to capture the highest single month unit sales of any platform outside the holiday timeframe."
Cammie Dunaway, who is marketing executive vice president for Nintendo, saluted the findings of the report and said: "Nintendo systems represented 58 percent of all video game hardware sold in March in the United States. We expect our momentum to continue with big upcoming game launches like Pok?mon Mystery Dungeon, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit."
Despite being placed in a distant fourth place in the overall hardware sales chart, Microsoft also gloated, declaring that gamers gave "the ultimate vote for Xbox 360 as the console of choice by investing $9.4 billion to date this lifecycle in the Xbox 360 experience, far outpacing that of other game consoles."