EA back PS3 during troubled times

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 04 March 2009 11:53

Your IT - Entertainment

The signs are all around, we are in the recession, and even the entertainers are feeling the pinch.  But Sony this week received a little PlayStation 3 support in both Killzone 2 sales and some –almost – kind words from the largest game maker going around, Electronic Arts.

The financial world is imploding, and in such circumstances people turn to cheaper forms of entertainment, we are told. 

Is a video game console something that falls into that category?  Probably not, given the initial outlay of funds, plus, what is considered exorbitant pricing in software.

It is a little early to check February’s sales figures, but in the UK at least the PS3 exclusive Killzone 2 has emerged on top of the pile with the Xbox 360 exclusive, released on the same day as Killzone 2 picking up second place. This knocked off the previous leader Street Fighter IV .

* 01 Killzone 2
* 02 Halo Wars
* 03 Street Fighter IV
* 04 Wii Fit
* 05 Professor Layton and the Curious Village
* 06 Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection
* 07 FIFA 09
* 08 Call of Duty: World at War
* 09 Ben 10: Alien Force
* 10 Mario Kart Wii

Undoubtedly those top two titles also shifted a few pieces of console hardware as they both had PS3 and Xbox 360 bundles associated with them.

But what of console sales?  January in the US saw the following numbers released by the NPD group

* Wii - 679,200
* NDS - 510,800
* X360 - 309,000
* PS3 - 203,200
* PSP - 172,300
* PS2 - 101,200

Not too shabby, but when contrasted to those of December 2008:

* Wii - 2.15 million
* NDS - 3.04 million
* X360 - 1.44 million
* PS3 - 726,000
* PSP - 1.02 million
* PS2 - 410,000

And November:
* Wii - 2,040,000
* Nintendo DS - 1,570,000
* Xbox 360 - 836,000
* PSP - 421,000
* Playstation 3 - 378,000
* Playstation 2 - 206,000

The January figures don’t look so hot. 

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