Platform holders discuss March sales

The platform holders have been blowing their own trumpets, buttering their own crumpets and using the word "momentum" a lot following the release of US sales figures for March.

Nintendo was quick to point out their machines accounted for nearly 60 per cent of all hardware sold - "More than all the other systems combined," said bigwig Cammie Dunaway. Without Nintendo products games industry revenues would be down 14 per cent for the year, don't you know.

Four of the best-selling games were Nintendo titles (Pokémon Platinum, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Wii Play). In the first week on sale 435,000 Nintendo DSi units were shifted; as a comparison, the DS Lite only managed 226,000 when it first launched.

Microsoft was similarly cheerful, pointing out Xbox 360 sales were up by 25 per cent year-on-year - "making it the only console experiencing growth in March... In contrast to double-digit declines posted by Wii and PS3". March was the sixth month in a row that 360 sales have been up compared to last year.

Four of the top ten games were for 360 (Resi 5, Halo Wars, MLB 2K09, Guitar Hero: Metallica). Sales of game add-ons were also up, rising by 128 per cent over last year's figure.

Sony was quiet when it came to discussing hardware figures, probably because it hasn't sold much hardware. In a press release containing many uses of phrases like "premium entertainment content and experiences", the platform holder pointed out that a million copies of Killzone 2 have been shifted.

That's not the only PS3 game proving popular - "Approximately 1 in every 3 PS3 titles achieve Metacritic scores of 80 or higher," according to Sony. Meanwhile the PSP "continues to gain tremendous momentum across the industry" and everybody loves a bit of hot PSN action.