The NPD Group has just released the latest video game sales data for the month of March and the first quarter of 2007 (which includes one extra week this year). Total industry sales in the U.S. were way up for both March and Q1. March sales totaled $1.1 billion (a 33 percent jump), while Q1 total sales skyrocketed 54 percent to $3.3 billion.
The key area of growth has been hardware, with total hardware sales rising 69 percent in March to $370 million. Console hardware in particular rose 93 percent to $257 million. Over the course of the first quarter, total hardware sales absolutely ballooned 94 percent to $1.3 billion, with console hardware again comprising most of that total—$958 million (a 129 percent increase).
Taking a closer look at the hardware for March shows that the Nintendo DS once again completely outpaced everything else. The handheld sold through 508K units for the month. The PS2, likely fueled by God of War II, came in second with 280K units. The Wii followed with 259K—quite respectable but far lower than certain analyst forecasts, which had pegged it at around 400K. The Wii now stands at 2.1 million in the U.S. Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold another 199K, bringing its life-to-date total to 5.3 million in the U.S. Unfortunately for Sony, the PS3 had another lackluster sales month with just 130K units sold (even fewer than during February when the console sold 136K). The PS3's U.S. total is now 1.2 million. Nintendo's old GBA outsold the PS3 with 148K, while Sony's PSP sold 180K. Finally, the GameCube, although on life support, sold through another 22K.
On the software side, the total for March amounted to $574 million (a 15 percent bump), which beat analyst forecasts that expected sales to be flat. For the first quarter, software sales were up 30 percent to $1.6 billion. During March and the first quarter, console software drove sales far more than handheld/portable software. Console software in March totaled $437 million compared to handheld software sales of $137 million. For Q1 console software sales were $1.2 billion compared to handheld sales of $393 million.
Unsurprisingly, Sony's God of War II topped the charts with 833K units sold, which was more than double the sales of second-place holder Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (394K). Wii Play also fared well, posting another 273K in sales following its strong debut in February. PS3's Motorstorm also cracked the top ten, coming in fifth place with 199K units sold. The top ten games for March (ranked by units) follows below.
- God of War II (PS2)—Sony—833K
- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360)—Ubisoft—394K
- Guitar Hero II w/guitar (Xbox 360)—Activision—291K
- Wii Play w/remote (Wii)—Nintendo—273K
- Motorstorm (PS3)—Sony—199K
- Diddy Kong Racing (DS)—Nintendo—189K
- Spectrobes (DS)—Disney Interactive—165K
- Major League Baseball 2K7 (Xbox 360)—Take-Two—165K
- MLB '07: The Show (PS2)—Sony—164K
- Def Jam Icon (Xbox 360)—EA—148K
Next page: Expert commentary from NPD's Anita Frazier
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