February was a big month for the console wars. Following the end of the format war, the latest results from the NPD Group reveals that the Sony PlayStation 3 has outsold the Microsoft Xbox 360 for the second month in a row. You'd bet Sony's pretty happy about it.
Before January, the Xbox 360 has been leading the field, so you can imagine how much of a victory this is for Sony. Jack Tretton, big boss man of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), highlighted the victory by saying that:
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.
With monster titles like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and Grand Theft Auto IV launching in April and Metal Gear Solid 4 in June, we're demonstrating this is the year for PS3.
SCEA adds that future releases are set to drive sales even higher. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Resistance 2, and LittleBigPlanet are just some of the exclusive titles they spotlighted for the PlayStation 3.
They also gave extra data for February, saying that there are more than 3.3 million registered PSN accounts, and more than 56 million downloads from the PS Store to date. PSN peaked at 6.3 million downloads in February alone.
SCEA is just as confident that the PlayStation Portable will experience growth in the upcoming months as well. They highlighted sparkling reviews of games such as God of War: Chains of Olympus and Patapon. They add that the release of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 is bound to drive sales further.
Finally, they gave the following data to add to the NPD Group's, stating that Sony generated the most US retail dollars in the industry for February with US$ 511 million in sales (52% higher than Microsoft, 6% higher than Nintendo). Talk about competition:
- Year to date (Jan-Feb), the PlayStation brand generated nearly $1 billion in the U.S. market, 56% and 15% higher than Microsoft and Nintendo, respectively.
- PlayStation total hardware revenue was $204 million in February, 125% and 11% higher than Microsoft and Nintendo, respectively.
- PlayStation total software revenue in February was $247 million, 32% and 5% higher than Microsoft and Nintendo respectively.
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