Big month for the Big N

The TRST market data for March (actually March 2nd through April 5th) is in, and Nintendo features prominently. The company took the top three software slots, with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in first and Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire in second and third.

GameCube's market share grew from 18% in February to 22% in March, and its hardware sales since the beginning of 2003 have increased 48% over the same period last year. Total GameCube software sales of 2 million trump Xbox's 1.6 million for last month. The tie rate for each system so far this year is 9.8:1 for GameCube and 8.5:1 for Xbox. The overall tie ratios since launch are 12.1 for GameCube and 10.0 for Xbox. This means that GameCube owners are buying more games for their system.

Game Boy Advance also performed extremely well in March, with the release of the new Pokemon games and the upgraded GBA SP hardware. Game Boy games accounted for half of all software sales during the five-week period.

With 826,000 units sold in March, The Wind Waker is currently the best-selling game of 2003. The two Pokemon games sold a combined 1.2 million units.

Between GameCube and GBA, Nintendo took 58% of all hardware sales during March. The SP model accounted for 85% of all Game Boy Advance sales.

Finally, Nintendo has retaken its position as the #1 publisher in North America. It held 20% of the software market in March, compared to 12% for Electronic Arts and 8% for Sony, the second- and third-place publishers.