PS3 sales up by over 80 per cent in US

Data trackers The NPD Group have published US sales figures for September, revealing a healthy boost in sales for PS3.

Sony shifted around 491,800 consoles last month - more than double the number sold the previous month, and during the same period last year. Might just be something to do with the price cut and the release of PS3 Slim, but hey, we're no analaysts.

It's the first time PS3 has taken the top spot in the home console charts, but Sony didn't win the hardware battle overall - DS is still number one with 524,500 units sold. The Wii was in third place (462,800), followed by Xbox 360 (352,600) and PSP (190,400). The good old PS2 is hanging on in there with 146,000 machines sold, mainly by antique shops.

Due to some complicated maths regarding the September tracking period having more weeks than August, or something, month-by-month sales aren't comparable. But on a per-week sales basis, PS3 sales were up by 87 per cent, the number of Wii units sold rose by 33 per cent and Xbox 360 enjoyed a 33 per cent increase.

Overall Americans bought less hardware than they did in September 2008. Revenues were down from $499.96 million to $472.28 million, a fall of 6 per cent.

They bought more games though - in fact, software sales were up for the first time this year, rising by 5 per cent to reach $649.32 million.

Around 1.52 million copies of Halo 3: ODST were sold during launch month, making it the sixth best-selling SKU launch ever. It beat Wii Sports Resort into second place with 442,900 units sold.

So who won the battle of the band games? Well, looks like Paul and Ringo will be able to pay those final demand electricity bills after all - their fans snapped up 254,000 copies of The Beatles: Rock Band for Xbox 360.

That put the game in fifth place, ahead of Guitar Hero 5. Around 210,800 copies of the 360 version were sold, leaving it languishing at nine. There's no word yet on how the PS3 and Wii versions of each game compared.

Here's that September software top ten in full:

1. Halo 3: ODST (Microsoft, 360) - 1,520,000
2. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo, Wii) - 442,900
3. Madden NFL 10 (EA, 360) - 289,600
4. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Nintendo, DS) - 258,100
5. The Beatles: Rock Band (EA, 360) - 254,000
6. Madden NFL 10 (EA, PS3) - 246,500
7. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Activision, 360) - 236,000
8. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Eidos, PS3) - 212,500
9. Guitar Hero 5 (Activision, 360) - 210,800
10. The Beatles: Rock Band (EA, Wii) - 208,600

For a more grown-up discussion of all this, visit GamesIndustry.biz.