Nintendo apparently hasn't heard the phrase "Christmas only comes once a year." According to NPD data for the U.S. market, the Wii sold an unprecedented number of systems in March 2008. Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold 2.7 million copies. And, in case you were wondering, the DS didn't do too shabby either.

March 2008 U.S. Hardware Sales

Wii – 721k

Nintendo DS – 698k

PlayStation Portable – 297k

Xbox 360 – 262k

PlayStation 3 – 257k

PlayStation 2 – 216k

NPD tracked five weeks in its March sales data, but a system selling 721,000 units is still an astounding achievement. It's an even more remarkable accomplishment in March, as opposed to November or December. Nintendo's managed not just to create evergreen sales success for its hardware offerings, but they've completely transcended the concept of the November-December holiday period as the only blockbuster season of videogame retail.

Only twice in its lifetime has the Wii sold more in one month than it did in March. Nintendo did manage to sell more systems in November and December of 2007. But this March's sales have exceeded Wii sales from September and October of that same year, as well as sales from either of the launch months of November or December 2006. According to NPD analyst Anita Frazier, this constitutes "the highest single month unit sales of any platform outside the holiday timeframe."

Almost certainly thanks to increased supply coinciding with the launch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (more on that later), the Wii vastly improved its already excellent sales record. February 2008 Wii sales were already impressive, and in March they were surpassed by 289,000 units. Year over year, Nintendo was just 56,000 units short of officially tripling March 2007's sales of 259,000 units. Given that NPD tracked five weeks for their data this month, the Wii averaged weekly sales of more than 144,000 units.

It's somewhat difficult to see the Nintendo DS sales success in the same light, even though Nintendo's portable landed in second place. It outsold the next highest entry (Sony's PlayStation Portable) by a whopping 401,000 units, and it was just 23,000 units behind the Wii. Over the past two years, the Nintendo DS has sold in large quantities year round. Last month it sold 587,600 units, so high sales are less surprising for Nintendo's other success story.

While the Wii and DS pulled away from the pack, the other systems on the market seemed huddled together with uninspiring flat sales numbers. The PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 2 filled out the rest of NPD data in that order. This just magnifies the focus on the struggle between the other two next-generation consoles on the market: Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. In the months of January and February, the PlayStation 3 had just barely managed to outsell its competitor, but this month Microsoft managed to prevent a three-peat by just 5,000 units. Things will only get more heated once Grand Theft Auto IV comes out for those systems in time to be tracked for the May NPD sales data.

The following year-to-date and lifetime-to-date numbers show some of the bigger picture beyond March.

2008 Year-to-Date U.S. Hardware Sales

Nintendo DS – 1559.6k

Wii – 1404k

PlayStation 2 – 831.8k

PlayStation 3 – 806.8k

PlayStation Portable – 770.1k

Xbox 360 – 746.6k

Approximate Lifetime-to-Date U.S. Hardware Sales

PlayStation 2 – 41.9 million

Nintendo DS – 19.1 million

PlayStation Portable – 11.3 million

Xbox 360 – 9.9 million

Wii – 8.8 million

PlayStation 3 – 4.1 million

The Wii is now about 1.1 million units from taking the lifetime lead from the Xbox 360 in American install base. In March, the Wii outsold the Xbox 360 by 459,000 units, but this could just be a one-time performance. With game releases like GTA IV in the near future, and whatever price cuts Microsoft may or may not have in mind, the Xbox 360 could post stronger performances in the coming months.

Still, Nintendo has an exceptional opportunity in America to post more huge sales numbers. Mario Kart Wii will be released in April, and both WiiFit and Nintendo's WiiWare service are coming in May. Nintendo is now producing 1.8 million Wii units a month, so there is always the possibility that this increased manufacturing capacity could help them capitalize on their momentum instead of falling back to pre-March numbers.

But Nintendo's hardware is only half the headline. Super Smash Bros. Brawl enjoyed its first month of availability in America and also did extremely well for itself, as the NPD data shows.

March 2008 U.S. Top Ten Software Sales

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) – 2.7 million

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Xbox 360) – 752.3k

Army of Two (Xbox 360) – 606.1k

Wii Play w/Remote (Wii) – 409.8k

God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) – 340.5k

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) – 301.6k

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii) – 264k

Major League Baseball 2K8 (Xbox 360) – 237.1k

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) – 237k

Army of Two (PS3) – 224.9k

March 2008 U.S. Additional Software Sales

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (DS) – 65k

Bully: Scholarship Edition (Wii) – 35k

With 2.7 million copies sold in its launch month, Brawl was a smashing success even though it released 3 months after the holiday season sales rush. It remains to be seen how front-loaded these sales are and just how well Brawl can maintain its momentum over time, especially considering that Brawl has already sold to almost a third of the Wii's install base in America. Brawl's predecessor, Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube, maintained consistent sales for years after its release. Melee eventually sold 7.09 million units worldwide; it was the top selling title on the GameCube. Combined with sales from its earlier Japanese launch, Brawl is at 4.2 million units worldwide.

Wii Play appeared at the number four spot, continuing to surprise observers. It's been the Wii's most consistent seller ever since its launch more than a year ago. With this month's sales, it is estimated to be sitting at 5.1 million copies sold in just the U.S.

Another unsung success story is Activision's Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. With a seventh place finish, and another 222,900 in sales, the Wii version of Activision's rhythm game has survived the discovery of a bug causing it to output only in monaural sound instead of stereo. Activision has since executed a free disc replacement program, but consumers never stopped buying the game. This month the Wii GH3 is the only version of the game to make it into the top ten and made up more than a third of the franchise's total 631,000 units sold across all platforms last month. The Wii version of the game should be approaching the 2 million units sold mark, marking it as a significant third party success story on a console usually known for its first party dominance. This bodes well for the upcoming Guitar Hero: Aerosmith sequel, as well as the Wii version of EA's Rock Band.

Further NPD data brings to light the performance of two games outside the top ten. Square Enix's Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates for the DS sold an unimpressive 65,000 units in its debut, and Take-Two Interactive's Wii port of last year's PS2 game Bully (a port was also released for the Xbox 360) sold only 35,000 units. This puts Bully in the company of games like Godfather: Blackhand Edition and Scarface: The World Is Yours. All three games came to the Wii as ports of older free-roaming sandbox PS2 titles and all three failed to make much of a sales impression.

All in all though, industry sales reached a whopping 1.7 Billion US dollars in March. And though Wii games are cheaper and the Wii itself is lower priced than its competitors, its success contributed the most to that figure. According to Frazier, "across hardware, software, and accessories, the Wii contributed the most to total industry sales, representing 31 percent of total industry dollars for the month."

NWR's review of February's NPD data can be viewed here.

In addition to information from the NeoGAF Official NPD thread, this report also contains data from stories by the simExchange and Next Generation.

Correction: The story originally reported Guitar Hero III's sales as 222.9k. These were its sales in February. In March, it sold 264k.