ITWire

Respected US research firm NPD has released the sales statistics for the world’s three ‘next-gen’ consoles in the US, with the surprising news that the PS3 finally managed to outsell one of its competitors, namely Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

The figures don’t seem to be published in any press releases at NPD’s website, but they have been re-published at sites across the Internet, with ours coming from Digital Trends.

However the figures may have been skewed somewhat by the fact that Microsoft and Nintendo’s manufacturing issues prevented them from actually getting more consoles into stores, meaning the true number of consoles sold, had everyone who wanted one been able to buy one, could have seen the PS3 still relegated to its traditional third spot on the ratings table.

Those NPD stats say that the Nintendo Wii came in top spot at 274,000 units sold during January, then 269,000 for the PS3 with the Xbox 360 squeaking in with 230,000 units.

Huge Christmas sales in December also limited January console availability somewhat, with NPD’s Anita Frazier quoted from Digital Trends as saying that: "Given the huge number of hardware systems sold in December, inventory shortages could be the biggest contributor to the softer-than-expected sales."

Gamespot quotes Frazier saying that: “At the top-line, on an average sales per week basis, January 2007 was actually up nearly 18 percent as compared to last year. And the big winner was console software which was up nearly 50 percent when compared on a level playing field to last year.”

PSP sales are pegged at 230,000, while the Nintendo DS continues to outsell the PSP by shifting 251,000 units.

So, after all that, how did the PS2 do? You may be surprised to know that it still generates big money for Sony, making up for a lot of the sales issues the PS3 has faced over the past year. Please read onto page 2.