April 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. sales of Nintendo Co.’s Wii video-game console fell 17 percent in March, the first monthly drop since January 2008, according to researcher NPD Group Inc.
Sales of the world’s most popular console fell to 601,000 players from 721,000 a year earlier, Port Washington, New York- based NPD Group said today in an e-mailed statement. Stores sold 330,000 of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 players, a 26 percent gain, and 218,000 of Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3, a 15 percent drop. U.S. industry sales slid 17 percent to $1.43 billion.
Nintendo has sold 19.6 million Wii consoles in the U.S. since the player was introduced in November 2006. The popularity has led game developers including Electronic Arts Inc. to create exclusive titles for the system. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said March sales suffered in the absence of a top release like last year’s “Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.”
“Our launch schedules are more spread out so we’re going to have these tough comparisons month to month,” Fils-Aime said in an interview. “But if you look at the overall trend of our business it continues to be very healthy.”
Wii sales in Japan trailed Sony’s PlayStation 3 in the five weeks ended March 29, Tokyo-based research firm Enterbrain said on April 7. The March decline in the U.S. was the first since a supply shortage crimped sales in January 2008.
Nintendo gained 1.6 percent to 28,040 yen in Tokyo trading today. The shares have fallen 46 percent in the past year.
Industrywide, game software sales in March totaled $792.8 million, a 17 percent drop, according to NPD. Hardware sales declined 18 percent to $455.6 million. The decline reflected this year’s later Easter, which delayed some sales that would have occurred in March, and Nintendo’s gains from “Super Smash Bros.” last year, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement.
“You might not think that Easter is that big of a gift- giving holiday, but our consumer data shows that 8 percent of industry unit sales were purchased for the Easter occasion in March 2008,” Frazier said.
Nintendo sold 563,000 of its DS handheld players in the U.S. in March, down 19 percent from a year earlier. Fils-Aime said purchases will increase following the April 4 introduction of a new version of the system, the DSi. That player has already sold 435,000 units in the U.S., he said.
Consumers bought 168,000 of Sony’s PSP handheld device.
Nintendo had four of the top 10 selling titles during the month, including No. 2 ranked “Pokemon Platinum,” with sales of 805,000, and “Wii Fit,” third with sales of 540,000.
The top-selling game in March was “Resident Evil 5.”
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