Report: Despite Economy, U.S. Game Sales Up 57% in March

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 18, 2008 - 8:50am.

Port Washington, N.Y. - Bypassing the current troubles in the overall economy, U.S. video game sales hit $1.7 billion in March, up 57% from a year ago on strong sales of Nintendo's Wii and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," according to industry sales data compiled by market research firm NPD Group. "You'd never know that the U.S. economy was under distress by looking at the video games industry sales figures," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Nintendo sold 720,000 Wii units during the month, while Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) regained the second spot from Sony (NYSE: SNE), selling 262,000 Xbox 360s to its rival's 257,000 PlayStation 3s.

In the handheld category, Nintendo also led with sales of 698,000 of its DS, while Sony sold 297,000 PSPs.

Among software titles, Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" led overall, selling 2.7 million copies during March.

Ubisoft's "Rainbow Six: Vegas 2" took second place, selling 752,000 copies, while Electronic Arts' (NASD: ERTS) "Army of Two" sold 606,000 units.