Nintendo dominates gaming industry with its Wii, DS conoles and SSBB game

Nintendo, one of the Big Three videogame console and handheld devices makers, once again has emerged as the number one among the trio of next generation gaming consoles in sales after selling as many units as both its main competitors, Sony and Microsoft, put together.

According to the fresh sales results provided by market research firm NPD Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii home video game system was the best-selling video game console last month in the United States after selling 721,000 units, 67 percent more than in February.

US gamers bought Microsoft’s 262,000 Xbox 360 units in March, while Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 consoles managed 257,000 units.

Besides the next-gen gaming console market, Nintendo also dominated the portable system market. In the hand-held category, sales of the Nintendo DS hit 698,000 in March, ahead of Sony's PlayStation Portable, or PSP, with 297,000 units.

Nintendo DS, which ranked as the second best-selling system in March after Wii, is a portable game player that is still selling briskly more than three years after its introduction. Sony’s 7-year-old PlayStation 2 attained the sixth position by selling 216,000 units.

"Nintendo systems represented 58 percent of all video game hardware sold in March in the United States," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo's VP of sales and marketing. "We expect our momentum to continue with big upcoming game launches like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit."

According to market research firm, NPD, the soaring sales of Nintendo's Wii and portable DS consoles propelled U.S. sales of video-game consoles, pushing hardware sales 46 percent to $551.3 million from $377.9 million.

In addition, Nintendo also scored the top game title with recent debut of the hit game “Super Smash Bros. Brawl”- a Wii exclusive. SSBB, one of the most anticipated games of the last several years, with dozens of characters, settings, options and ways to play, hit the market on March 9. The game sold 2.7 million copies in March, making it the month's top selling title by far, NPD said.

Two Xbox 360 titles, “Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2” from Ubisoft and “Army Of Two” from Electronic Arts Inc., were the distant second and third top sellers by selling 752,300 and 606,100 units respectively.

Other top-sellers included Wii Play, God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP), Guitar Hero III (Wii), MLB 2K8 (360), Call of Duty 4 (360), and Army of Two (PS3) in that order.