Nintendo tops the charts in the US for February

The Nintendo Wii outsold both the XBox 360 and the PS3 and the DS sold more than twice the number of PSPs in the United States in February according to independent research group NPD.Retailers sold nearly 432,000 Wiis, which far exceeded the 280,800 PS3s and 254,600 360s sold in the same period. The DS also continued its total dominance of the handheld market by topping the charts for February with over 587,000 sold for the month compared to 243,100 PSPs. More inside Nintendo of Americas executive vice president of Sales and Marketing, Cammie Dunaway, said Nintendo’s momentum had not stopped since the Christmas period and expected it to continue throughout the year. We have the industrys strongest lineup of games for everyone from core to casual gamers, she said.

According to Nintendo, in the United States:

* Nintendo sold more than 1 million hardware units combined, accounting for nearly half (47.6 percent) of all hardware sold.
* Nintendo DS games topped all software sales, with more than 3.6 million units sold. Consumers purchased nearly 2.9 million software units for Wii. Four of every 10 games sold were for Nintendo systems.
* Three games in the top five sellers for February play on Nintendo systems, including two from third-party publishers.
* Nearly 1.7 million accessories were purchased for Wii, more than for any other system. More than 1.2 million accessories were sold for Nintendo DS as well.

Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO, Jack Tretton, said consumers were beginning to recognise the value of the PS3 and boasted about outselling the 360 for the second month in a row. We believe that Blu-ray becoming the high-def format of choice was the tipping point for many consumers,”” he said. “”With monster titles like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and Grand Theft Auto IV launching in April and Metal Gear Solid 4 in June, we’re demonstrating this is the year for PS3.”” Microsoft’s official response to February’s NPD report reiterated the supposed supply constrained situation, which they said was improving.

They also emphasised that what makes a winning platform is more than console sales. To Microsoft it is about consoles, content and community. The statement continued to outline a huge number of statistics explaining why they believe they are the current US market leaders, but the evidence is quickly mounting up to support Sony’s claims that the PS3 is on the rise after a difficult start.

That being said, it is hard to deny that Nintendo is certainly in a winning position around the world and it will become increasingly difficult for the big publishers to ignore this level of success.

Full hardware charts and the top 10 software for February below.

PlayStation 2 351.8K
PlayStation 3 280.8K
PlayStation Portable 243.1K
Xbox 360 254.6K
Nintendo DS 587.6K
Wii 432K

360 CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE* ACTIVISION 7-Nov 296.2K 1
360 DEVIL MAY CRY 4* CAPCOM USA 8-Feb 295.2K 2
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA 7-Feb 289.7K 3
PS3 DEVIL MAY CRY 4* CAPCOM USA 8-Feb 233.5K 4
WII GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK* ACTIVISION 7-Oct 222.9K 5
NDS MARIO AND SONIC: OLYMPIC GAMES SEGA OF AMERICA 8-Jan 205.6K 6
360 LOST ODYSSEY MICROSOFT 8-Feb 203.6K 7
360 TUROK TOUCHSTONE 8-Jan 197.7K 8
PS2 GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK* ACTIVISION 7-Oct 183.8K 9
360 ROCK BAND* MTV GAMES/ELECTRONIC ARTS 7-Nov 161.8K 10

Charts sourced from NPD via NeoGAF