Sales of video games and gaming consoles have surpassed analyst expectations by far, rising a stunning 57 percent from a year earlier. Market research firm NPD reported that sales of gaming hardware, software and accessories hit $1.7 billion in March. Nintendo ruled the month with its mega-successful Wii console, with sales figures of 720,000 in the U.S. alone.

Nintendo's stunning results are partly due to the release of the video game "Super Smash Bros. Brawl", which was the top-selling game in March with 2.7 million copies sold. This means that the game was picked up by more than 30 percent of all Wii owners in the United States.

"You'd never know that the U.S. economy was under distress by looking at the video games industry sales figures. Year-to-date growth is a rock-solid 27% through March 2008," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier quoted by Gamasutra. "Across hardware, software, and accessories, the Wii contributed the most to total industry sales, representing 31% of total industry dollars for the month," Frazier said.

In terms of hardware sales, Nintendo snapped the first two places with the Wii and DS. The PSP came far behind on the third place with 297,000 units, followed by Xbox 360 with 262,000 and the Playstation 3 and 2 (257,000 and 216,000 units sold). This means that Microsoft could celebrate overtaking archrival Sony, as sales of its Xbox 360 had been lagging during the past two months, mainly due to a strange "supply issue".