NPD Results for February 2010

While GDC has the entire gaming industry well occupied this week, some things continue apace, as the NPD group released their monthly console hardware and software sales figures today. For the first time since the release of Halo 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 stood atop the sales charts with 422K units sold between January 31st through February 27th, though the PS3 did see a 30 percent increase year over year with 360K thousand units sold. Gloating in Redmond should be kept to a minimum however, as PS3 supplies continue to appear severely constrained; many major retailers online stores no longer have the system in stock, and sites like Amazon are awash in third party sellers charging outrageously marked up prices for the system. The Wii found itself in a rare second place position with 397K units sold.

Software sales are less surprising for February, as Bioshock 2 moved 562K on Xbox 360 (more than twice the number on PS3). However, in a rare twist, Dante's Inferno sold 242K on the PS3, twenty thousand more units than its Xbox 360 counterpart (though it bears mentioning that the PS3 SKU was a collector's edition with additional content, similar to last year's Arkham Asylum).

"Honestly, I had expected the industry to perform somewhat better this month," stated NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "Nonetheless," she continued, "strong new releases, and Easter gift-buying bodes well for industry performance in March." Frazier also specified that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is now the third best selling game of all time at just under ten million copies sold.

Hardware Units Feb-10 

PlayStation 2 101.9K 

PlayStation 3 360.1K 

PSP 133.4K 

Xbox 360 422.0K 

Wii 397.9K 

Nintendo DS 613.2K 

Title Platform Publisher Release Date Units Rank 

BIOSHOCK 2* 360 TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE Feb-10  562.9K  1 

NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII WII  NINTENDO OF AMERICA Nov-09  555.6K  2 

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2* 360  ACTIVISION BLIZZARD  Nov-09  314.3K  3 

JUST DANCE WII  UBISOFT Nov-09  275.4K  4 

SPORTS RESORT W/ WII MOTION PLUS* WII  NINTENDO OF AMERICA Jul-09  272.5K  5 

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2* PS3 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD  Nov-09  252.8K  6 

MASS EFFECT 2 360  ELECTRONIC ARTS Jan-10  246.5K  7 

DANTE'S INFERNO: DIVINE EDITION PS3 ELECTRONIC ARTS Feb-10  242.5K  8 

DANTE'S INFERNO 360  ELECTRONIC ARTS Feb-10  224.7K  9 

HEAVY RAIN PS3 SONY Feb-10  219.3K  10 



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