March was a pretty big month for videogames, with no less than three major releases populating the calendar. Gears of War: Judgment, Tomb Raider and BioShock Infinite have all caused quite a stir in the video game world. Considering they're all big-budget blockbusters, many expected sales to be quite good.
Now that the monthly NPD numbers have been released, we can say for sure that March was, indeed, a good month for the video game industry, at least in terms of software. Total game sales inched up by 2 percent over the previous year, hitting $602.4 million. That makes March the first month since November in which the industry experienced growth.
"The performance of new launches was a major driver of the overall software growth for this month, with games launching in March 2013 selling over 40 percent more units than new launches in March 2012. There were positive trends for new launches that were seen across consoles, portables, and PC," NPD's Liam Callahan said, according to GamesIndustry International. "There were actually fewer new launches — about 20 percent less new games — than last March, but March 2013 launches generated close to 70 percent more dollar sales per SKU than last year."
So which game came out on top? BioShock Infinite topped the list, with 878,000 units sold. The game has sparked a lot of lively discussion among gamers, and it's reportedly on pace for over 4 million sales. Tomb Raider came in second, posting the biggest first-month sales in franchise history, which is pretty great, even though Square-Enix expected more. Gears of War: Judgment rounds out the top three.
Interestingly, last month's top game, Dead Space 3, is nowhere to be found, while the 3DS makes a showing with the release of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon.
Here's the full list:
1. Bioshock: Infinite (360, PS3, PC) Take 2 Interactive
2. Tomb Raider 2013 (360, PS3) Square Enix Inc.
3. Gears of War: Judgement (360) Microsoft
4. God of War: Ascension (PS3) Sony
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (360, PS3, PC, WiiU) Activision Blizzard
6. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS) Nintendo
7. MLB 13: The Show (PS3, PSV) Sony
8. NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, WII, WiiU, PSP, PC)Take 2 Interactive
9. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (360, PS3, WiiU) Activision Blizzard
10. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 (360, PS3) Namco Bandai Games
