Taking the fight to the shops

While Nintendo, or to be precise 3DS, continues to dominate in Japan, it's always interesting to see how the company is performing outside its homeland. In the UK our only regular insight is the weekly software chart, and courtesy of the NPD Group we now have our monthly insight into how the big N is performing in the U.S.

In the recently published report for March, it's been a reasonable month for Wii, 3DS and its software. In terms of hardware neither is top of the class — that prize goes to Xbox 360 — but 225,000 3DS systems and nearly 175,000 Wii units is a reasonable month of sales. The performance of the direct handheld competition from the Vita isn't clear, as Sony didn't release any figures for comparison.

In the software chart Mario Party 9 was the seventh best seller overall, with over 230,000 sales. Kid Icarus: Uprising was only released on 23rd March, but was still the top selling 3DS title for the month with more than 135,000 sales: Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land sold 118,000 and 100,000 units respectively.

While these aren't spectacular figures, they're reasonably solid, especially considering the wider trends that show gaming revenues falling compared to last year. With a full month of Kid Icarus: Uprising sales and some big 3DS titles on the horizon, it'll be interesting to see how the handheld and Wii perform in the coming months.

[source uk.games.ign.com]