It's time for a pulse of the video game business. Looks like a bit of the economic reality is starting to step into the gaming realm with March 2009 game sales down 17%. GameDaily points out that Nintendo's March 2008 release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a tough sales month to beat. Easter also fell in the month of March last year. The NPD Group numbers in April 2009 will likely account for an increase in video game sales from Easter gift giving, and Nintendo will likely boost numbers up once again with the release of the Nintendo DSi on April 5th.

March 2009 is a telling month for Mature rated games on Nintendo platforms. It's proven to be tough for Mature games to sell on the Wii and DS. Game publishers such as SEGA (MadWorld on Wii) and Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars on DS) are putting their Mature (M) games in a Nintendo market that is saturated with kid and family-friendly titles. Both of those games are great accomplishments and highly rated. MadWorld, released on March 10th, is in the top 5 highly rated Wii games for 2009, but didn't make the top 10 sales list in March 2009. Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars, released on March 17th, is the top rated game, number one game on the Nintendo DS currently, yet it didn't make the top 10 sales list for March, even when released before Pokemon Platinum, which was released on March 22nd. Is it too late for games aimed towards an older, mature audience to succeed on the Wii and DS?

Here's there breakdown of March 2009 video game industry sales, based on units, from the NPD Group, via GameDaily.

Game hardware sales (in units) for March 2009:
1. Wii - 600k units
2. DS - 563k units
3. Xbox 360 - 330k units
4. PLAYSTATION 3 - 218k units
5. PlayStation Portable - 168k units
6. PlayStation 2 - 115k units

Game software sales (in units) for March 2009:
1. Resident Evil 5 Regular & Collector's Edition (Xbox 360) 938k units
2. Pokemon Platinum (DS) 805k units
3. Halo Wars Regular & Collector's Edition (Xbox 360) 639k units
4. Resident Evil 5 Regular & Collector's Edition (PS3) 585k units
5. Wii Fit with Balance Board (Wii) 541k units
6. MLB '09 The Show (PS3) 305k units
7. Killzone 2 (PS3) 296k units
8. Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii) 281k units
9. Mario Kart with Wii Wheel (Wii) 278k units
10. Major League Baseball 2K9 (Xbox 360) 205k units

See the February 2009 NPD results here (and see how previous sales and predictions compare). As for predictions in April 2009, the Nintendo DSi will likely top the game hardware lists. The newly priced $99.99 PS2 will revive the PlayStation 2 a bit more as well. The April 2009 game software is pretty mixed. It's up to games like Rhythm Heaven, Guitar Hero Metallica, Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena and Godfather II to boost the month up.

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