Gamernode: News - Console races: Wii comes in first. Who's second?

Console races: Wii comes in first. Who's second?

NPD Group has released figures for the top sellers for game consoles in the month of February and there were some surprises as to which game machines beat out the Xbox 360 and PS3 in sales.

Of course, you said the Wii and you'd be corret. But it also turns out that the PS3 pulled in more sales than the Xbox 360 too...along with another surprise. More about that later.

You might as well nickname the PS3 "Lazarus" because the once buried game console has come back from the dead and with a vengeance. It seems that everyone in the whole gaming world cried "foul!" when the price was first announced for the PS3. However, some very smart people at Sony finally decided to lower the prices of the once unattainable game machine and now it seems that the strategy has paid off.

It's amazing what can happen when companies start to follow the advice of the consumer, eh?

Oh, and winning the hi-def DVD wars helped too. Jack Tretton, president and CEO of SCEA did a little crowing and said, "Consumers are recognizing the tremendous value of PS3 and we believe that Blu-ray becoming the high-def format of choice was the tipping point for many consumers."

So how did the numbers break down for February? Well, of course the Wii came in first place with 432,000 units. Sony's PS3 came in with 281,000 units sold, and the Xbox 360 came in behind the PS3 with 255,000 units sold--finishing behind the PS3 for the second consecutive month.

But that's for the figures of present gen consoles (Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360). Guess what outsold both the Xbox 360 and the PS3? It was none other than Sony's last gen PS2. It sold an astonishing 352,000 game machines.

NPD analyst Anita Fraizer said, "I was most surprised by the PS2 hardware sales numbers this month. While it certainly has earned its spot among the now-gen slate of console systems because of it staying power in the marketplace, the fact that it realized such significant growth this month is really a testament to its broad adoption and the response of consumers to promotional activity at retail."

So if anyone is still surprised about the PS2's strong showing, its got to be Sony. For the meantime, it looks like the PS2 will still be around for quite a few years to come in spite of it being "old tech."

• (7)
• 
• 
• 
•