Nintendo Sales Trump Competition in US

The January sales update has been released by the NPD Group and shows complete Nintendo domination for yet another month over in the US. In fact, sales are far higher than anyone could have expected coming off the back of such stellar sales in November and December. Clearly Nintendo is having no trouble with its stock supplies now and the worldwide recession has yet to seriously affect the company in North America right now.

Check out the Top 10 software and hardware sales for the month of January, 2009:

Software Top 10
1.) Wii Fit (Wii, Nintendo) - 777,000
2.) Wii Play (Wii, Nintendo) - 415,000
3.) Mario Kart Wii (Wii, Nintendo) - 292,000
4.) Left 4 Dead (360, EA) - 243,000
5.) Call of Duty: World at War (360, Activision) - 235,000
6.) Skate 2 (360, EA) - 199,000
7.) Guitar Hero: World Tour (Wii, Activision) - 155,000
8.) New Super Mario Bros. (NDS, Nintendo) - 135,000
9.) Mario Kart DS (NDS, Nintendo) - 132,000
10.) Lord of the Rings: Conquest (360, EA) - 113,000

Hardware
1.) Wii - 679,200 | 18,219,000
2.) Nintendo DS - 510,800 | 28,052,000
3.) Xbox 360 - 309,000 | 14,169,000
4.) PlayStation 3 - 203,200 | 6,997,000
5.) PlayStation Portable - 172,300 | 14,513,000
6.) PlayStation 2 - 101,200 | Unconfirmed

Of note, if the rate of Wii Fit sales continues at its current pace then it will actually overtake the PlayStation 3's installed hardware base by April this year! Clearly Sony needs to make some important changes to avoid being completely crushed this generation, with Wii taking the casual audience and Xbox 360 catering for the core gaming crowd.