Software Sales in Depth

From what we know of March 2008 software sales from the top 10, additional data from NPD and other sources, the picture looks just as rosy as the hardware scene. Here is the top 10 chart, with unit sales:



Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii led all of the other titles with sales of 2.7 million units after 28 days on the market. For context, the most recent big Wii title was Super Mario Galaxy in November 2007, which racked up 1.12 million units in 20 days on the market. Outside of the Wii, Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 sold 3.3 million units in 12 days during September 2007.

After a two year absence, Sony's PSP made a big splash in the top 10 software chart, as both God of War: Chains of Olympus and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII both sold well enough to take the #5 and #6 rankings. Previously the only two PSP titles to chart in the top 10 were Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition in July 2005 and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories from October 2005 to January 2006. Several PSP titles have sold well enough to make the top 20, including Madden NFL in the Fall of every year since 2005.

Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for the Xbox 360 took the #2 spot for the month with over 750,000 units in sales. It also launched on the PlayStation 3 and that version sold 154,700 units (according to figures from The simExchange), but did not make the top 10. Another shooter on the Xbox 360, EA's Army of Two, placed third for the month, topping 600,000 units in sales. The PlayStation 3 version took the #10 spot, adding nearly 225,000 more units for that title's first month on the market. While EA's newer property came in second to Ubisoft's shooter, it appears to have fared relatively well against the more established Rainbow Six franchise.

Wii owners continued to snap up copies of Wii Play, and it subsequently charted at #4 for the month with over 400,000 units in sales. This marks Wii Play's 14th month on the top 10 chart and it has just cleared 5 million in sales since it launched in February 2007. If it maintains its current average sales rate, it will clear LTD sales of 8 million units by the end of 2008.

Dropping from the top 10 chart this month were EA/MTV's Rock Band, Touchstone's Turok, Microsoft's Lost Odyssey, Sega's Mario & Sonic: Olympic Games, and Capcom's Devil May Cry.