NPD: March game sales skyrocket 57 percent

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm PT

US retailers sold nearly $1 billion of gaming software alone last month; total with hardware and accessories a record $1.7 billion; 360 and PS3 neck-and-neck.

When a professional athlete produces unbelievable statistics, they are sometimes said to be posting "video game numbers." The industry-tracking NPD Group today released its US retail sales figures for the month of March, and the gaming industry itself can safely be characterized as producing "video game numbers."

Overall, the US game industry's total retail take for hardware, software, and accessories amounted to $1.7 billion combined, up 57 percent from the $1.1 billion it posted for March 2007. "You'd never know that the U.S. economy was under distress by looking at the video games industry sales figures," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement. "Year-to-date growth is a rock-solid 27 percent through March 2008."

Software sales for the month were up 63 percent year-over-year to $945.6 million. To put that figure in perspective, last March--a month that saw the release of God of War II on the PlayStation 2 and Guitar Hero II on the Xbox 360--only managed $957 million with software and hardware sales combined. While catalog titles like Wii Play, Rock Band, and Call of Duty 4 have driven game sales so far this year, March was dominated by new games.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii easily topped the charts with sales of 2.7 million copies. The next-best-selling game was Ubisoft's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, which just reached the 752,000 mark. New releases like Electronic Arts' Army of Two, Take-Two Interactive's MLB 2K8, and the PlayStation Portable debuts of God of War: Chains of Olympus and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII also made the top 10.

While Frazier noted the success of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, emphasizing that it sold to nearly one-third of the Wii installed base in its first month at retail, she said credit for the software sales growth should be distributed widely.

"The amazing year-over-year increase in software sales isn't just explained by a few top games," Frazier said. "As compared to last March, twice as many SKU's achieved sales in excess of 100K units this month."

The explosive growth wasn't limited to software, as sales of hardware also soared 46 percent to $551.3 million. Nintendo earned bragging rights once again as the Wii sold 721,000 units, with the DS not far behind at 698,000 systems. The PSP was the next-best-selling piece of kit, moving 297,000 systems into gamers' hands. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were neck-and-neck with sales of 262,000 and 257,000 respectively, while the PlayStation 2 brought up the rear with 216,000 systems sold.

US VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY - MARCH 2008
Software: $945.6m (+63%)
Hardware: $551.3m (+46%)
Accessories: $220m (+58%)
Total Games: $1.7 billion (+57%)

TOP-SELLING HARDWARE - MARCH 2008
Wii--721,000
Nintendo DS--698,000
PlayStation Portable--297,000
Xbox 360--262,000
PlayStation 3--257,000
PlayStation 2--216,000

TOP-SELLING SOFTWARE - MARCH 2008
Title / Publisher / Release Date / Units
1) Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) / Nintendo / March 2008 / 2.7M
2) Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2* (360) / Ubisoft / March 2008 / 752.3K
3) Army of Two (360) / Electronic Arts / March 2008 / 606.1K
4) Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii) / Nintendo / Feb. 2007 / 409.8K
5) God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) / Sony / March 2008 / 340.5K
6) Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) / Square Enix / March 2008 / 301.6K
7) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) / Activision / Oct. 2007 / 264.1K
8) MLB 2K8 (360) / Take-Two Interactive / March 2008 / 237.1K
9) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare* (360) / Activision / Nov. 2007 / 237K
10) Army of Two (PS3) / Electronic Arts / March 2008 / 224.9K
*Includes Collector's, Limited, Legendary, Bundles (Guitars) Editions

351 Comments

  • fmprodguy

    Posted Apr 17, 2009 2:41 pm PT

    Interesting, other sites are listing different numbers for the consoles.

    NPD Group has released its latest numbers on American console sales. Let's take a look at the numbers and do some deconstructing.

    Nintendo Wii - 601,000 Nintendo DS - 563,000 Xbox 360 - 330,000 PlayStation 3 - 218,000 PlayStation Portable - 168,000 PlayStation 2 - 112,000

  • xXZak-ataKXx

    Posted Mar 13, 2009 10:09 am PT

    sony is doing well. i luv my psp and ps2 and ps3! GO SONY!!!

  • headshot23_

    Posted Jul 24, 2008 9:13 pm PT

    thats wicked crazy........

  • 255Utah

    Posted May 15, 2008 8:09 pm PT

    Whoa.. how much money did nintendo pay?

  • Humorguy_basic

    Posted May 3, 2008 2:07 pm PT

    VINDICATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although I got negatives and flamed for saying that video gaming was not soaring because it was been covered up by Wii and DS sales, a report out yesterday by IDG, another industry tracking group, said that very thing. That just giving out one overall percentage, the excellent success of Wii and DS was covering up a downturn in 360 and PS3 sales and overall covering up a video gaming downturn.

    Although not mentioning PC, it's obvious that PC gaming is down on 3 years ago too, so as I said in this thread (see below) take out Wii and DS and you have a very different story!

    So to anyone who gave me a negative or flamed me, just think of me smiling!

  • darkride66

    Posted Apr 30, 2008 5:36 am PT

    DiscGuru101 "Carefully notice, game sales on the PS3 are always lagging way behind."
    That's actually incorrect. Jan/Feb the PS3 edged out the 360 in US numbers but it's been comfortably ahead of the 360 in worldwide sales every month since December. Still has a long way to go but it's good to see all consoles enjoying healthy sales. Please don't turn this into a system wars thing.

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Apr 30, 2008 1:50 am PT

    Carefully notice, game sales on the PS3 are always lagging way behind. More proof, that the PS3 is the counsel king of movie rentals.

  • Humorguy_basic

    Posted Apr 29, 2008 10:11 am PT

    Take the fast growing Wii and DS game sales out of the above numbers and see what's left. Not a lot.

  • matthom23

    Posted Apr 29, 2008 8:30 am PT

    No wonder game sales are up. With gas as high as it is, people are staying home more and finding things to do. Who can blame them?

  • darkride66

    Posted Apr 27, 2008 6:58 am PT

    @ jackrocks123. LOL. Ok, Makaatsu has a theory that games are in decline because sales have declined since, wait for it, December! I'm sure you're as shocked as I am. Actually, vgchartz shows us that all 3 consoles are showing significant increases from the Jan - mid April period of 2007. The Wii moved 3.4 million more than last year at this time (5.2million total), the PS3 1.3million increase (3.1 total) and the 360 1.6 million more over 2007 (2.25 total). Did you look into these numbers at all? According to vgchartz the PS3 has been in second place worldwide every month since December, and if anything vgchartz has been accused of overtracking the 360's numbers. Bottom line is all 3 consoles are going strong and as gamers we all win.

  • jackrocks123

    Posted Apr 27, 2008 3:13 am PT

    TheRaiderNation I think what nintendo has done with the Wii is pretty amazing. The Wii has pretty innovative gameplay elements compared to the 360 or PS3, but is technological inferior & it was also the last system to launch in the US. Now on average it sells more than the 360 and the PS3 combined. I've really got to hand it to nintendo, some people thought they were dead after teh gamecube. Regardless, what a great time to be into gaming, you have two excellent portable systems out and I don't care what anyone says, the 360 is an excellent system and the PS3 is an excellent system, and then throw in the Wii!


    well said, finally someone has sense lol,

  • jackrocks123

    Posted Apr 27, 2008 3:11 am PT

    Makaatsu @Darkride

    The new figures have just come in to vgchartz and again the figures are prooving me right and you wrong. Worldwide sales for 18th April
    PS3 = 164k
    360 = 141k
    Compared to last week
    PS3 = 164k
    360 = 132k

    Which means the PS3 growth continues to decline because the PS3 had it's first A+ title of the year released a week ago in Pro-logue and sales failed to increase.
    In fact the 360 sold 9k more consoles then it had the previous week.
    More worryingly for the PS3 is that it fell to 4th in the UK being re-over taken by the 360 despite the release of pro-ogue in it's best sales territory for the game. And even more worrying is that it only sold 8k in japan while the 360 sold 2k.

    So again this prooves your argument the PS3 is gaining on the 360 is true but it's only 20k extra a week, at that ratio it will take a lifetime to catch up to the 360.

    just drop the argument alot of people don't buy the ps3 for the prolouge, they rather wait for the proper one.

  • jackrocks123

    Posted Apr 27, 2008 3:05 am PT

    hmm the ps3 sales willl start to go up as most people buy it for MGS 4, thats what i did, i also got 360, but good thing about ps3 is its free online, i refuse to give microsoft my money just to play against over people

  • belwyrm

    Posted Apr 26, 2008 5:50 pm PT

    I have both and I don't think I've turned my 360 on in a couple months.....Never played online with the 360 either, I refuse to pay.

  • darkride66

    Posted Apr 26, 2008 11:58 am PT

    cjnwo4life said "This is a problem as i go looking for a game and i get it (3rd party) on the 360 for reasons i am sure u know why."
    Because you don't quite feel right unless your paying extra subscription costs to play 100% of your games? No, actually I don't know why. I buy all my multiconsole titles on the PS3 and have since I sat around waiting to play my copy of Halo 3 while my 3rd 360 console was off for a month waiting for MS to send me back an older console as a replacement. I'm not living in fear that my PS3 will die on me after 2 hours of gameplay, I don't like paying extra to play 100% of a game and every single reviewer out there claims differences between the 360 and PS3 version of current titles are negligible.

  • scarface_tha_se

    Posted Apr 26, 2008 9:47 am PT

    I like the battle that the PS3 and 360 are locked in. No one has given us Play station fans competition for the last two generations. The 360's good numbers and decent software base is going to push Sony to work harder and harder on the PS3.

  • cjnwo4life

    Posted Apr 25, 2008 9:10 pm PT

    I love my ps3 its overall feel. However, the games lack (harder this gen as most are 3rd party dev are not going exclusive which i feel is needed however the reality is the cost is way to high to favor 1 console over another. Thus the need for more ps3 games by sony and its contracted devs. This is a problem as i go looking for a game and i get it (3rd party) on the 360 for reasons i am sure u know why. So what do i have to look forward to MGS. This will be the 1st ps3 purchase this year (not good). I want more. Yes i am selfish but what gamer isn't i guess. So I sit waiting for monday night for GTA for... yes the 360 for the online and the exclusive additions. I guess i real good question would be how many gamers have BOTH like me. Maybe that would explain the low attach rate for the ps3? Just a thought!

  • darkride66

    Posted Apr 25, 2008 1:53 pm PT

    @ cjnwo4life. I 100% agree. Sony should market the hell out of the fact the PS3 has Blu-ray. That's a good thing, it's one of it's strongest selling points. A 40GB PS3 costs $400, has free online, a great games lineup and Blu-Ray. A 360 Pro costs $350, live costs you $50 each year and it has a great games lineup too. Sony needs to hammer home those two points, Free online and Blu-Ray. And that's what they appear to be doing. We already know they have the games.
    I really thought you were trying to argue no one buys games for the PS3. Sorry about that!

  • cjnwo4life

    Posted Apr 25, 2008 12:58 pm PT

    @ darkride66

    Just to get more info on the ps3 as a blu ray player 1st (i think for some reason u think i believe noone plays games on it. that isn't my point the point is blu ray movies are the push and without the ps3 they wouldn't exist). Want proof...

    We can't say we didn't see this coming. It was inevitable someone would tie the PlayStation 3 (a Blu-ray player) to the success of Blu-ray. This startling conclusion is brought to us by ABI Research, who note the Blu-ray market is "heavily tilted" on the success of Sony's console. That's not all, though. It seems they've concluded that upscaling DVD players are doing just fine, since many of today's DVD enthusiasts are sitting tight for digital distribution to take over. Blu-ray can't "rest on its laurels," they say.

    It's true that the PS3 is the main unit getting Blu-ray sales. It's a Blu-ray player. We're certainly not going to stick a Blu-ray disc in our toaster. If it's really a problem for standalone players, it's definitely a matter of price. It's telling that the PS3 is less expensive and more versatile. Who knows where the future will take us, but we'll probably be hand-in-hand with our PS3's.

    http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/04/25/blu-ray-success-due-to-heavy-reliance-on-ps3/

    Again, the main plan for the ps3 is to market it as a blu ray player and without that blu ray would be dead as the article says most are waiting for digital distr over blu ray.

    Remember I have a ps3 so don't think I am hating just stating some hard realities.

  • darkride66

    Posted Apr 25, 2008 8:17 am PT

    @ Makaatsu. I appreciate you altering your blog. To clarify, I went over my previous posts, all hidden from multiple thumbs down. I've said before that the current sales trends seem to indicate that the PS3 could overtake the 360, but I've always tempered this with, "But 360 price cuts could change this," and that there are variables at play. Personally, I think the PS3 can do it, but I wouldn't spout this as gospel and so much can change that it's anyones guess. I think things got a bit out of hand which is why I sent you that first message asking you to agree to disagree. As perhaps your blog wasn't meant to personally offend me, I never set out to offer anything other than an alternate viewpoint.

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