NPD: March sales put Xbox 360 in passenger seat

by Xav de Matos on Apr 18th 2008 12:00PM

After falling to third place in hardware sales for the months of January and February, Microsoft's Xbox 360 inched out the PlayStation 3 to land in their familiar second place spot behind the Nintendo Wii. After dropping 9.3% in sales versus February 2008, the PlayStation 3 ended the month selling 257,000 units against Microsoft's 262,000 units for a small gain of 2.8%.

With the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto IV console sales are expected to rise and the data from the next few months should indicate how the market will trend well into the Summer as the Rockstar title gains steam at retail.

- Wii: 721K

289K (40%)
- DS: 698K

110.4K (15.8%)
- PSP: 297K

53.9K (18.1%)
- Xbox 360: 262K

7.4K (2.8%)
- PS3: 257K

23.8K (9.3%)
- PS2: 216K

135.8K (62.9%)

[via Joystiq]

Software sales for the Xbox 360 continue to be strong in the month of March with four of the top ten titles coming from the Microsoft platform. Well behind the success of Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl was Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and EA's Army of Two at second and third respectively while MLB 2K8 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare rounding out the Xbox 360 effort at eigth and ninth.

March Software
1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) - 2.7 million
2. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Xbox 360) - 752.3K*
3. Army of Two (Xbox 360) - 606.1K
4. Wii Play w/ remote (Wii) - 409.8K
5. God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) - 340.5K
6. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) - 301.6K
7. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) - 264.1K
8. Major League Baseball 2K8 (Xbox 360) - 237.1K
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) - 237K*
10. Army of Two (PS3) - 224.9K

* - Includes bundles and special editions

Tags: hardware-sales, march-sales, npd, software-sales

Reader Comments (39)

Wait...

Pachter was wrong?

Say it isn't so! My Faith in the Universe has been Shattered!

Pachter is wrong as much as he is right. He's been almost universally overpredicting PS3 success since its launch. Meanwhile underestimating the xbox 360.

If you watch the bonus round you would swear he's some sort of PS3 fanboy that trys to hide it. He always talks up blu-ray and says stuff like the exclusive DLC for GTAIV won't matter at all because no one can finish a GTA game, they just pick it up and mess around for a few minutes like he does apparently.

He also said that being able to get drunk in GTAIV is "dopey", basically saying that it's a stupid and childish idea. Pachter is an idiot imo I don't know why anyone listens to him.

Also, funny quote regarding the NPD results this month, no Sony arrogance at all here...

"This further proves the trend that 2008 is the year for PlayStation."

- Jack Tretton, president and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment America

Well PerfectStrategy it's pretty much a given. He's some moron from Sony, whats he supposed to say?

Now I love my 360, but I also have been a long time PS fan. The only reason that I want one this time around though is for the Blu-Ray and based on the software sales, I would say I'm not the only one. I think the PS3 sales are skewed greatly because of this. The good part is that developers see this data and will continue to strongly back the 360.

It's hard to say. If eventually people with a Bluray player realize that the PS3 is getting some decent exclusives (and even more in the future) and has some of the same big name multiplatform titles I could see there being a huge shift.

But if the PS3 continues to just manage to get one game, if that, in the top ten, even when just behind the 360 (or even ahead of it) that's going to be a problem.

I guess we'll see when GT5 Prologue hits these charts. It really depends on whether or not most fans of that and MGS have already bought the system or not. The two are neck and neck for the month at this point as it is.

i disagree tony

if people are buying a ps3 because it's "the best bluray player on the market at this point", much of those buyers are buying it for the movie playing capabilities. those buyers don't translate into huge buyers of games (look at the numbers between Vegas2 on PS3 and Xbox 360)

I just bought a PS3 and it was mainly for the Blu-Ray capabilities, as its the best deal out of any players currently on the market. And it can also play games, stream music from my PC, stream video, etc.

There are a few good titles already out on the PS3 and there are some exclusives coming out this year that I'll probably pickup, MGS, KillZone 2, Resistance 2, etc.

But I'm a huge fan of the 360 and prefer the controller and the Live experience far and above the PS3. I believe the industry has room for both consoles and it will only benefit us that they both continue the competition in the market.

Everyone keeps touting that the next two years the PS3 will take off. While that may be true for 2008, I am not so sure about 2009. By then Blu-ray players should be under that $199 price mark and the incentive to purchase a PS3 because it is the cheapest or best Blu-Ray player is no longer there. With gaming software as low as it is now how can developers not look at the 360 has the lead console to go with, especially with reports claiming attach rates for the PS3 are as low as 3-4 games per console.

hmm.. i wonder who will get a bigger spur in sales from gta:IV. my guess is PS3 will sell more systems through the end of april but Xbox will, as usual, sell more copies of the game.

a lot of midcore people bought ps2's for GTA and those same people will probably look to the playstation brand again this time, unfortunately.

if the joystiq network poll is any sort of indicator, it's going to be something like 60/40 in 360's favor which is a LOT closer than i thought it'd be.

I agree. but you have to consider that a huge portion of people who will be buying GTA:IV are not hardcore gamers. They're the kind of people who aren't reading Joystiq on a daily basis like us.
those people might nto realize GTA:IV exists until they see advertisements for it in the coming month.

Luckily for a 360 fanboy like myself, the 360 is more like the ps2 was last generation. so cross those fingers.

w00t! Awesome. What's even better is that we won't have all the PS3 fanboys over here today!

Because you managed to sell 5k more consoles last month (despite getting whipped for the past 2 months).

You must be so happy today...

Awww, never mind. I guess they ARE going to show up. I was declaring my happiness that you psychos would stay in your holes.

LOL, "back to ur hole bitch" - Cole

360 is beating PS3 despite the fact that it's been out for 2 years already, which means our fanbase is only growing. PS3 will be playing catch up for a long time...

You guys must fell so proud for beating a console you were declaring dead a couple of months ago, by 5,000 units.

Open up the champagne and enjoy it whilst it lasts. 2008 is the year of the PS3, with all the worthy exclusives heading to PS3...

I could have sworn that 2007 was suppose to be the year of the ps3. Whatever.

It may please you to know that the ps3 will eventually take the lead over the 360 due to its sales in japan(where the ps3 averages about 65k a week), but unless sony can double their sales in japan, it will not happen in 2008 or 2009. 2010 should see the ps3 in the lead, but we'll be reading about the next Nintendo and Microsoft consoles by then.

so far all i see is mgs and rfom2.

rfom paled in comparison to gears of war, and aside form those two, the ps3 doens't have much to offer. It's got haze, which is looking worse and worse. It's got lbp, whihc is a niche game. And that's it.

The 360 has ninja Gaiden, Too Human, Banjo 3, halo wars, and a dozen more awesome games.

Your forgetting Sony's platformed dipped by more than 20,000 units. Why isn't that coming up in your argument?

We're just giving out the numbers here. Keep the flames in the fire, kiddo.

I don't usually keep up with the sales figures, so are they US or World?

If they are US, I'd like to know where people are finding the Wiis. I haven't seen one on the shelves in months.

DAMN STRAIGHT!!!

@Zebra U spoke to soon....

@Jake piss off

HA! I know. :)

This won't last July when MGS4 is released there is going to be a massive spike in sales. I figure thats was caused everyone to shy away from a purchase because they can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I for one don't care because soon I will have all three consoles.

u mean june. mgs4 is june 12

Sony's biggest problem with the uptake of the PS3 (imo) is due to the fact that they are still selling the PS2. It was a smart but costly move on Microsoft's part to end support for the original Xbox, but it has paid off. Sony on the otherhand is unwilling to let go of that cash cow, therefore when the uneducated go to the store and compare the price tags for PS3 and PS2, I am guessing most people walk away with the PS2. PS3 sales are just now starting to outpace the PS2 a year and a half after it's release. It's a good thing those bloggers at Sony Defense Force count the combined sales otherwise they wouldn't have had much to brag about.

I'd speculate that, like my, the PS3 surge was due much to a.) 360 shortages, and b.) people (like me) who rushed out in February to buy a blu-ray player once the format wars were done & over ...

I'll be really curious to see the results over the next 1-2 months to see how GTAIV pushes new console sales. (And, again, to see what kind of bump PS3 gets from MGS in June).

And you too must be so proud that the PS3 outsold the PS2 for only the second time since November of 2006.

The previous comment was @Jake

Microsoft needs to make a hand held console so I can play my arcade titles or watch movies anywhere.

This whole console war is a big cycle. One will always 1 up each other month to month, and sales leads will change often. Remember, all this competition is good for the consumers! I believe we are all lucky to have such a variety of options when it comes to gaming. Anyways, coming from a PS3 fanboy, congrats to the xbox camp!

First off, this should put an end to the "everyone who wants an xbox 360 already owns one" meme.

Second, neither console is selling that well. 250k monthly sales is pretty low when you compare it to the historical levels that the ps2 sold. The biggest reason for that is price. Yes, both consoles have a lot of features and are HD but people are still going to be reluctant to drop >$300 on a console, and the numbers show this. 250k monthly sales is much better than the 180k we saw last year but it's still below the 350k+ we saw the ps2 do a few years ago.

Uhmm, i read through most of the commenst and some good things were said, but, lets just wait and see, one month does not the winner of a console war make, but sony has some catching up to do wit console sales and just number of games, even arcade titles, what is PS3 at and what is 360 at, i would like to see those numbers as well, dont even care for duplicates between the two, they can get counted, and then originals can get classified diff also.

Put all that together and compare it to each other and im pretty sure 360 is still on top

XBOX 360 NEEDS TO LOWER ITS PRICE ALREADY.

They need to make up ground, dude.

It seems all I have read lately by sony ps3 fanboys is how the PS3 will dominate the 360 from here on out??
Nothing special was released this month, nor was there anymore price drops, I guess the 360 simply sold more based on it's own merits.
Cheaper, better system
Best games
Best online experience

I will be interesting to see when system sellers come out ala GTA IV, GOW ect ect how much the 360 beats out the only other next gen console the PS3.

Kudos to 360 for it's sales.

It's interesting how badly 360 games are still outselling PS3 games.

There are 17 million 360's out there, and 10 million PS3's right? So that's a ration of 1.7:1. Yet the sales of multiplatform games are way higher than that ratio.

R6V2 on the 360 sold 752k units, while R6V2 on the PS3 didn't even make the list which puts it at under 224k units. That means the 360 version is outselling the PS3 version by a clip of more than 3.35:1 even though the console sales are only 1.7:1.

Likewise with army of two, it was 606k for the 360 and 224k for the PS3 version, again near the 3:1 mark.

Why the disparity? I know that the 360 gets talked up for its high attach rate, but are 360 owners really buying THAT much more software? Or is it just that more people than we think are buying PS3's as blu-ray players? Or is it even that many PS3's are being sold as second consoles to 360 owners that still buy the multi-plat games on the 360?

That should be "ratio", not "ration".

Just like to point out you are using global hardware numbers in comparison to US NPD software sales numbers.

In the US, the hardware ratio is closer to 3:1, in favor of the Xbox360. So the software/hardware ratio is about equal.

I'm just pointing that out, because I'm sure multiplatform games on both system sell with a higher ratio for the PS3 versus the Xbox360 in say Japan (example, Devil May Cry 4, sold I believe it was 21:1, in favor of the PS3.)

Ok, that makes more sense then.

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NPD: March sales put Xbox 360 in passenger seat

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