As usual, The NPD Group has released its sales report about
the video games industry. Nintendo’s little wonder, Wii, continues to lead the
sales, with 721,000 units sold and the Japanese company has one more reason to celebrate,
as its Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the best title in software sales with 2,700,000
copies sold.
Despite some predictions, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 outsold its
main rival, PlayStation 3 and the company had an important lead in the software
department, with four games in Top 10:
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 with 752,300 units, Army of
Two with 606,100 units, MLB 2K8 with 237,100 units and Call of Duty: Modern
Warfare with 237,000 units.
As for Sony, its PlayStation 3 sold only 257,000 units. It
seems like Sony’s weak portfolio of games keeps on hurting the hardware sales,
with only one title, Army of Two, succeeding to make it into Top 10, with
224,900 units.
However, what can we expect in April? It’s obvious that a
good game title can boost the sales, so let’s see what will be in the stores
for each gaming platform.
For Xbox 360 and PS3 the main title in April will be
Rockstar’s GTA IV, this year’s biggest launch in the gaming world. Nevertheless,
my guess is that GTA IV, which is scheduled to be released on April 29, will
rather boost the sales of Xbox 360, instead of those of PS3. Microsoft has
already promised some exclusive GTA IV content for Xbox Live and the company is
already working on some awareness campaigns.
But Sony has also another great title, its exclusive Gran
Turismo 5 Prologue, which made its debut in the United States on April 17. The game
is sold as a Blu Ray disc or as 2.2 GB download from PlayStation Network and is
priced at $39,99.
GranTurismo, a franchise developed by the Japanese gaming
company Polyphony Digital, is a real station in the PlayStation world. The
initial game was the best-selling title for PlayStation and all the other games
have had a tremendous success among the racing fans and not only.
So far, Gran Turismo franchise has sold 47 million units
worldwide and it is considered that it helped PlayStation2 to sell 100 million
units. It will be interesting to see how and if Gran Turismo boosts PS3 sales.
Nintendo is heading for another strong month, as the company
is ready to unleash
Mario Kart Wii on April 27, a game that will be delivered together
with a new accessory that will delight the gamers: Wii Wheel.
With a broadband hookup to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection,
players will be able to compete with up to 11 other drivers from around the
world for racing dominance.
Mario Kart Wii is bringing 16 new courses, in addition to
the 16 classic courses from previous Mario Kart games and it promises a lot of
fun as the players will have the option to race with karts or motorbikes.
Anyway, Nintendo said that the Wii Wheel would be sold also
as a separate accessory, so that everyone in the household could race with their
own wheel.
As you can see every console has its own arguments to hope for
better sales in April compared to March. But in fact, even with the GTA IV
release, I find it hard to believe that the Xbox 360 will manage to match Wii
sales, even though it will easily outsell PS3. In the software department, GTV
IV on Xbox 360 will be surely the winner.
But, as nothing is official until the next month when we
have another NPD report, let’s wait and see the GTA IV launch.
