March 2008 NPD Numbers

It’s that time of the month again: NPD time (also known as the brief period where the internet explodes from fanoboys declaring their console’s superiority through sales numbers from the previous month).  Let’s start out with the hardware numbers and then move to software.

Nintendo won once again by selling 721,000 Wiis and 698,000 DS’s.  The Wii is still unable to be found in stores and the DS continues its hot streak.  It will be interesting to see if the DS sells as many units this month with the recent news that there will be a new model released at E3.

Sony did very decent with their Playstation Portable selling 297,000 units and their PlayStation 3 selling 257,000.  But the Xbox 360 pushed ahead of the PS3 (barely) for the first time in 2 months selling 262,000 consoles.  So maybe there was some truth in that whole supply shortage story.  The PS3 and the 360 will probably swap the lead many more times this year (like COD4 and Halo 3 used to do).

Total hardware sales raked in $551.3 million, up 43% from last years’ $377.9 million.  Is this further evidence that video games are recession-proof?

Here is a full list of the hardware sales:

1. Nintendo Wii - 721,000
2. Nintendo DS - 698,000
3. PlayStation Portable - 297,000
4. Xbox 360 - 262,000
5. PlayStation 3 - 257,000
6. PlayStation 2 - 216,000

Software sales were also very good with Super Smash Bros. Brawl leading the pack with 2.7 million copies sold.  It was overall a shooter dominated lineup that had no major shockers.

Here’s a list of the top ten games sold:

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) - 2.7 million
2. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Xbox 360) - 752.3K
3. Army of Two (Xbox 360) - 606.1K
4. Wii Play w/ remote (Wii) - 409.8K
5. God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) - 340.5K
6. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) - 301.6K
7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) - 264.1K
8. Major League Baseball 2K8 (Xbox 360) - 237.1K
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) - 237K
10. Army of Two (PS3) - 224.9K

So there were no huge surprises.  But it was a very, very good month for the video game industry.

[via Joystiq]