| "This time last year the previous generation of consoles were dying in the face of slowing software support, and this year only one of the next-generation consoles is supply-constrained. The market has also seen the release of many updates to already successful franchises. " " it was a safe bet that the numbers for March sales would improve over last year, and they have, by 33 percent. We can also now look at the first quarter of the year in total and see that the industry has sold $3.3 billion worth of content for an increase of 54 percent over last year. What has driven this growth in March? " "Nintendo is still king of the sales charts, and they're showing little sign of slowing down any time soon. The DS owns the number one slot for the first quarter, with 1.23 million units sold, and the still supply-constrained Wii is in the number two slot with 1.02 million sold. It's hard to say what Nintendo could have done if they had been able to flood the retail channel with systems, but this is still an overwhelmingly positive result for the Japanese giant." "People need games to play on all those systems, though, but only three games kept slots on the top 10 sales charts in March: " " by Disney Interactive at number 7. Nintendo has sent out a press release claiming that so far this year they have sold more hardware than all the other manufacturers combined, and Reggie Fils-Aime takes the opportunity to crow a little about the company's success. "The message delivered by both Wii and Nintendo DS is the same one," he said. "Innovation is compelling both current gamers and new gamers to experience a new way to play. Nintendo is bringing gaming back to the masses." While this may come off as hubris from other console manufacturers, Nintendo has the numbers to back up such bold statements." "Microsoft is showing respectable hardware sales with 199,000 pieces of hardware sold, but they continue to rule the charts in terms of software. 360 owners certainly like buying games, and that translates into almost four of the top 10 slots going to Microsoft. " " had a good showing at number three with 291,000 units sold of that $90 game. " " sold well despite our issues with the game's quality, moving 148,000 units to come in at number 10. Microsoft isn't showing anything remarkable here, just steady representation with some quality games. " "Sony had a rougher time overall, but the PlayStation 2 is continuing to make them proud: that system sold 280,000 units to hold the number two slot. The PlayStation 3 came in at seventh place with 130,000 sold, beating only the GameCube and the original Xbox in sales. Embarassingly, the GBA beat out the PlayStation 3 in the standings, although
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