U.S. game retail giant GameStop enjoyed a stellar fiscal first quarter ending March 31st 2008, according to its latest financial report.  Sales increased increased 41.8 percent to $1.8 billion USD from the first quarter of 2007, while actual profits were up by a smoking 151.4 percent to $62.1 million USD.  The software top five for Q1 2008 included Grand Theft Auto IV, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and Army of Two.

Despite the slow U.S. console hardware sales last month as reported by the NPD Group, GameStop remains adamant that Grand Theft Auto IV almost doubled the retailer's sales for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles in the first five days of the title's launch.  Meanwhile, GameStop expects the freshly launched Wii Fit "exergame" to similiarly boost sales for the Wii; in fact it's expected to be the major factor driving growth for Nintendo's console, which GameStop still has a tough time keeping in stock.

GameStop predicts console hardware sales this year should easily beat 2007's record figures.  More importantly, the retailer believes current console lifecycles should last much longer than the previous generations of hardware, including the still-popular PlayStation 2 platform.  That ought to be encouraging news for gamers who aren't quite ready to splurge on the next Xbox yet, and it certainly falls in line with the seven to ten year lifecycle predictions already provided by the console giants themselves.