Nintendo Officially Recession-Proof

[sukishan]

Nintendo Officially Recession-Proof

If you would have expected Nintendo to have yet another amazing month in January, you sir would be right. Nintendo's success has been unprecedented in previous generations, and once again the Big N owns not only in hardware sales, but in software as well.

Based on numbers released by the NPD group (which doesn't even cover Wal-Mart, mind you), Nintendo has sold nearly 1.2 million systems in January alone, dispersed evenly between its console Wii and portable DS. As far as the specifics go, Wii clocks in at a whopping 679,200 units, with DS bringing in another 510,800 on top of that. Both systems (on their own) sold better than any competition, with Xbox 360 coming in at 309,000 as the top of the bunch, PS3 trailing next with 203,200, PSP hitting 172,300, and PS2 still pulling off a decent 101,200 total units of hardware.

What does this mean? Wii pushed numbers equivalent to PS3, PSP, and Xbox 360 combined (slightly lower by about 5k), and when you factor in DS's sales as well, the gap widens by almost double.

The usual suspects take the top software spots as well, with Wii Fit leading the pack at 777,000 units, Wii Play still doing 415,000, and Mario Kart Wii bringing in 292,000 as well, clinching the top three spots over Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty: World at War, and Skate 2. As for more Nintendo sales within the top 10, Guitar Hero World Tour (still the highest selling of the versions) scores another 155,000 units sold for Wii, followed by New Super Mario Bros (135,000) and Mario Kart DS (132,000) in spots eight and nine. System bundles are included in that list, but seeing New Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart still in the top 10 is simply insane; talk about evergreen titles.

Most alarming is Wii Fit, which may we remind you, is still selling for $89.99 at retail, bringing in nearly another 800k in January alone (typically one of the slowest software months in the year). What else does this mean for Wii developers and publishers? That's nearly another million players with a balance board in their house. If that doesn't push more support for Nintendo's biggest peripheral, we don't know what will.