March 2012 NPD Number Crunch: Industry plummets 25 percent despite Mass Effect 3 success

Fulfilling the expectations of analysts, the North American games industry couldn't pull itself out of another month of decline during March 2012 despite a solid roster of new game titles actually managing to sell well enough to land into the latest software Top Ten.  In fact, the overall figure for March was 25 percent lower than the take recorded for the same month last year, as both hardware and software sales similarly suffered from double-digit drops across the board.

On the bright side, it's been a good year thus far for EA's new RPGs as Mass Effect 3 soundly secures the title of best-selling game for the month of March.  According to the NPD Group, ME3 was so successful that it more than doubled the sales of Mass Effect 2.

Capcom's Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City meanwhile secured second place in spite of largely negative reviews from critics, a sharp contrast from the well-received Kid Icarus: Uprising which barely missed NPD's software top ten.

While hardware sales suffered the most last month, Microsoft managed to score a win with the Xbox 360 being the top selling console for the fifteenth consecutive month.  March proved very good for Microsoft's platform, as half the top-selling game titles were available on the Xbox 360.  Sony's PS3 secured second place, and Nintendo's 3DS followed in third, beating the Wii.

March 2012 US Games Industry Summary
Total Industry Sales - $1.10 billion USD (-25%)
Console Hardware Sales - $323.5 million USD (-35%)
Console Software Sales - $553.1 million USD (-25%)
Total Software Sales - $585.1 million USD (-26%)
Accessory Sales - $222.5 million USD (-8%)