NPD: Nintendo maintains hardware grip

Despite the announcement that its successor will be here (in Japan at least) before the end of the year, Nintendo’s DS shows no sign of letting up in the US market, with the handheld topping the March sales list.

The DS sold 700.8k units in the period, with its homebound cousin the Wii selling the second highest amount – 557.5k units.

Demand for Nintendo fun continues unabated,” NoA’s Cammie Dunaway explained. We’re glad so many people are able to get their hands on our systems as we prepare for the May launches of Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii and Picross 3D for our Nintendo DS systems.”

Third place was claimed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (338.4k), just ahead of the PS3 (313.9k). Sony’s console, incidentally, experienced its eighth straight month on year-on-year gains.

It wasn’t such a great month for PSP, however, whose 119.9k sales only just beat the age-old PS2’s 118.3k unit sales.

Wii experienced its best non-holiday sales month (hardware) since March 2009,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier explained. Compared to February 2010, on an average sales/week basis, Wii is the only hardware platform to increase sales velocity over February.

Looking at Nintendo DS sales, March 2010 marks the first non-holiday month the platform has broken the 700k mark since June of ’09, and was the top selling platform across consoles and portables for the month. Sony’s PS3 hardware posted its eighth consecutive month of year-over-year increases.”

Here are the numbers:

Nintendo DS – 700.8k
Wii – 557.5k
Xbox 360 – 338.4k
PS3 – 313.9k
PSP – 119.9k
PS2 – 118.3k