Wii, DS, Pokémon and Mario Party lead the way as the industry continues to grow.
Here are the hardware sales figures for each system through the month of May:
Nintendo DS - 423,150
Wii - 338,278
PlayStation Portable - 221,120
PlayStation 2 - 187,765
Xbox 360 - 154,932
PlayStation 3 - 81,604
Game Boy Advance - 80,554
GameCube - 10,728
Nintendo once again leads the hardware sales race in the United States, seeing its four systems responsible for 57% of all game hardware sold last month. Though down slightly from the previous month, Wii and DS numbers are still blowing the competition away. To put the sales figures into perspective, consider how much money Americans were spending on just Nintendo hardware last month: $55 million on the Nintendo DS and $84.6 million on Wii. Such numbers may be the reason why the game industry saw a 67.2% increase of hardware sales in May compared to last year at the same time.
So what about the top games for May? Here's ten of them:
Pokémon Diamond (DS) - 331k
Mario Party 8 (Wii) - 314k
Spider-Man 3 (PS2) - 249k
Pokémon Pearl (DS) - 238k
Wii Play (Wii) - 227k
Forza Motorsport 2 (360) - 217k
Guitar Hero 2 (360) - 184k
Spider-Man 3 (360) - 140k
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (360) - 138k
Guitar Hero 2 (PS2) - 131k
Nintendo games occupy four of the top five spots. Pokémon Diamond has cooled off since its million-plus opening, but still holds the number one spot. Pearl was not so lucky, slipping down to slot four. Mario Party 8 picked up the slack, however, coming in ahead of the PS2 version of the game-of-the-movie, Spider-Man 3. Overall game software sales are 33.2% higher than they were last year.
Overall, the game industry saw growth at the rate of 48.7%, factoring for all hardware and all software. There's no question the Wii and DS are the reason for such tremendous progress. The hardware and software numbers make that as plain as day. But how long can Nintendo keep that up?
