Nintendo DS and Wii top US NPD sales for February

The monthly NPD charts for America have been released and well its nothing short of fantastic for Nintendo. Were gratified that the explosive appeal of Wii, in terms of both new players and new ways to play, has created unprecedented demand, substantially beyond supply, says Reggie Fils-Aime. Also only one system improved its sales that was the Nintendo DS. Halo 3 Beta, aka Crackdown, topped the software sales with the bargain Wii Play bundle coming in second – and why not its a good deal. The overall gaming industry grew 53% as well.

Full Charts and Figures inside
Software

360 – Crackdown 427,000
Wii – Wii Play W/Remote 371,000
NDS – Diddy Kong Racing 262,000
Wii – Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess 130,000
PS2 – Guitar Hero 2 W/Guitar 130,000
360 – Gears Of War 119,000
360 – Major League Baseball 2k7 113,000
360 – Lost Planet: Extreme Condition 111,000
Wii – Warioware: Smooth Moves 109,000
360 – NBA Street Homecourt 102,000

Hardware

Nintendo DS 485,000
Wii 335,000
PlayStation 2 295,000
Xbox 360 228,000
PlayStation Portable 176,000
Game Boy Advance 136,000
PlayStation 3 127,000
GameCube 24,000
Xbox 480

Nintendo’s Press Release

According to independent sales data released by the NPD Group, the Wii(TM) from Nintendo was Americas best-selling video game console in the U.S. again in February, with consumers snapping up virtually every system available in America totaling more than 335,000 units.

Only one game system sold more in February, the portable Nintendo DS(TM), with sell-through of 485,000 units.

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Together, Nintendo systems represented 54 percent of all hardware sales in February, more than those of all other manufacturers combined.

Were gratified that the explosive appeal of Wii, in terms of both new players and new ways to play, has created unprecedented demand, substantially beyond supply, says Reggie Fils-Aime, president, Nintendo of America. But we also understand that there are hundreds of thousands of consumers still waiting to get their hands on the system so we continue to both ship more units to retail every week and work non-stop to build capacity.

Reports from households across the country indicate that Wii has become the centerpiece for weekend parties, a new method for improving athletic technique and losing weight, and a landmark product for generating cross-generational fun.

The strength of Wii and Nintendo DS was also apparent in monthly software sales where three of the top four best-selling games for the month (Wii Play(TM) and The Legend of Zelda(R): Twilight Princess for Wii, and Diddy Kong(R) Racing DS for Nintendo DS) play exclusively on Nintendo systems. In addition, so far this year 10 of the top 20 best-selling games are exclusive for Nintendo hardware.