Rinse, Wash, Wii-peat – March NPDs
by Stephen Woodward on April 29, 2008
With the dust cloud of Holiday shopping well in our rear-view mirror and the strains of a recession squeezing our checkbooks, you would think the games industry would slow down a bit. You, my friend, would be wrong. Looking at the results of the March NPDs, it seems we’re actually back to where we started last summer!
Dropping its lead from last month, the PS3 chugged along (okay, well not quite as far behind) with 257K in sales; the Xbox 360 nervously fixed “shortages” with 262K; and the Nintendo powerhouse continues to sail comfortably ahead – the Wii alone beating the PS3 and Xbox 360 combined – with the Waggle machine selling 721K and the DS selling 698K. The PlayStation brand continues to move other hardware as well, selling nearly 300K in PSP’s, respectably. And its big brother the PS2 finally dropped in sales significantly as more people began to realize that this isn’t the year 2001.
1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl — Wii — Nintendo — 2.7 million
2. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 — Xbox 360 — Ubisoft — 752.3K*
3. Army of Two — Xbox 360 — EA — 606.1K
4. Wii Play w/ remote — Wii — Nintendo — 409.8K
5. God of War: Chains of Olympus — PSP — Sony — 340.5K
6. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII — PSP — Square Enix — 301.6K
7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock — Wii — Activision — 264.1K
8. Major League Baseball 2K8 — Xbox 360 — Take-Two — 237.1K
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare — Xbox 360 — Activision — 237K*
10. Army of Two — PS3 — EA — 224.9K
And who said the Wii was just for casual gamers? Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold 2.7 million copies in March. Coming in at second in place, Rainbox Six Vegas 2 for the Xbox 360 sold a far less 752.3K. In third place, using a co-op move to climb the charts, was EA’s Army of Two, reporting in at 606.1K. The PS3 version of this game came in tenth, with less than half the sales. Wii-Play came in at fourth with 409.8K and God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP summoned 340.5K in sales.
In terms of hardware, this just goes to prove that the Wii is most definitely, not in a million years, a fad. For Nintendo to outsell both the PS3 and Xbox 360 combined with either the individual sales figures of the Wii or its handheld machine is incredible. It’s also interesting to note that the PS3 beat the Xbox 360 for the past two months by an ever so slight margin. Microsoft said it was due to shortages in hardware – which is probably true, seeing as how after amping up supply they shot ahead (albeit 5K) of the PS3. Let the fanboys quibble, but the PS3 and Xbox 360 are essentially tied. The PS3 has a lot of great game releases coming out this year, as does the 360, so it’s going to be very interesting to see if either can make a significant pull ahead in sales. One thing’s for sure, the Wii and DS are selling like hotcakes and its sales only continue to amaze the cynics. And with Wii Fit and Mario Kart gearing up for the following months, the Nintendo machine isn’t likely to slow down.
Source: Game Daily
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