Yesterday, Nielsen revealed the data of last month’s console sales and the figures weren’t all that surprising. Nintendo DS sold like water in the desert, PlayStation Portable is still trying to play catch up, Nintendo Wii is still selling furiously, Microsoft’s 360 ended up in last place, and PlayStation 3 outsold every console on the market for the first time in a very long time. This wasn’t exactly unexpected as the $100 price cut has been speculated to put Sony at the “sweet spot” of retail pricing for its console for a lengthy period of time now.
While a ton of gamers think the Sony spike in sales will cool off as time progresses and people adjust, I think we’re going to see Sony lead in sales over the 360 and possibly the Wii (if lucky) for months to come. It’s been speculated for awhile that at $299, PlayStation 3 becomes an irresistible purchase to consumers and that is going to speak volumes come this Holiday season. Oddly enough, all three platforms saw sales increases from August, yet none were as high as Sony’s.
“The industry managed a modest increase over September 2008, and generated the second bestselling September on record after 2007 when Halo 3 released and sold over 3 million copies that month,” said NPD’s Anita Frazier. “All three console manufacturers enjoyed the impact of lower prices on unit sales as the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 realized an increase over August of 87%, 33%, and 31% respectively, on an average sales per week basis (keeping in mind September was a 5-week month compared to 4-weeks in August).”
We’ve included the official numbers below.
* Nintendo DS – 524,200
* PlayStation 3 – 491,800
* Wii – 462,800
* Xbox 360 – 352,600
* PSP – 190,400
* PlayStation 2 – 146,000
Very impressive numbers for the PS3. Lol, the DS is the crack of the gaming industry.