The country is experiencing a major financial crunch but that’s not stopping Americans from spending billions of dollars on electronic relaxation. March of 2008 saw $1.7 billion in sales of video games and gaming consoles, a 600 million dollar increase over the $1.1 billion from March of last year. A lot of the credit can go to the release of new titles.
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.
The overall 2008 numbers will get another boost when Grand Theft Auto IV and Madden are released. Here are the top selling games for March:
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
On top of having three games in the top 10, Nintendo’s Wii and DS outsold the PSP, Xbox, PS3, and PS2 combined. The Wii is too goofy for my taste, but it looks like I’m in the minority with that opinion.
NPD: March game sales skyrocket 57 percent. Courtesy of GameSpot
Tags: video games, Nintendo Wii, sales, economy
