February isn’t usually the most active month for game sales, but this year, we’re seeing quite a bit of stock being moved. The NPD, a marketing and retail research firm, has released its monthly list of top 10 games in North America, and the results are fairly interesting. The XBox 360 takes up 5 of the top 10 slots, while the Nintendo Wii holds 3 of the other 5. Overall, video game sales are up 53% from this time last year. Let’s take a look at the exact figures.
1. Crackdown (Xbox 360) Microsoft – 427K
2. Wii Play w/ remote (Wii) Nintendo – 371K
3. Diddy Kong Racing (DS) Nintendo – 262K
4. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) Nintendo – 130K
5. Guitar Hero 2 w/ guitar (PS2) Activision – 130K
6. Gears of War (Xbox 360) Microsoft – 119K
7. Major League Baseball 2K7 (Xbox 360) Take-Two – 113K
8. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Xbox 360) Capcom – 111K
9. WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii) Nintendo – 109K
10. NBA Street Homecourt (Xbox 360) Electronic Arts – 102K
Now we’ll take a moment to discuss the items on the list. Crackdown, the RealTime Studios sandbox brawler that includes an invite to the Halo 3 beta, took the number 1 spot for obvious reasons. Number 2 is the Nintendo Wii’s latest mini-game release of Wii Play which includes an extra remote, the biggest selling point of the bundle, actually, is the remote, since they’re still relatively hard to come by. Nintendo also took 3rd place with Diddy Kong Racing for the DS, proving that if it says racing and a Nintendo characters name, it’s going to sell well, as Nintendo has a long history of popular racing games.
Number 4, also Nintendo’s, is the unsurprising best-seller, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which has been a fan favorite franchise since its debut on the NES. Finally, the 5th spot belongs to Sony, but it’s a PS2 game. Guitar Hero 2 with guitar controller is still extremely popular and still extremely unplayable on the PS3. You’d think they’d want to fix that. Gears of War, 6th on the list, is still going strong adding more sales to bring them up over 2.5 million copies sold. 2K Sports baseball game, Major League Baseball 2k7 debuts on the chart in the number 7 spot.
At 8th, Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions, Capcom’s latest AAA title for next gen systems enjoys its second month in the top 10. WarioWare: Smooth Moves continues at a steady pace, bringing its total up to 361,000. Finally, NBA Street Homecourt debuts at number 10.
A few things to note from the February sales is that Nintendo and Microsoft dominated the sales charts, with the XBox 360 claiming 5 spots, the Wii with 3 and the DS had 1. The Nintendo Wii still doesn’t have many titles available, but those that are coming out are well received. Gears of War is still performing well after several months, as is Guitar Hero 2. The numbers from March may finally show a PS3 title since MotorStorm was recently released here in the States.
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