Crunching Numbers – The PS3′s Successes

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As the NPD numbers once again begin their monthly hibernation, the most talked about news from September’s sales data remains the PlayStation 3’s rise to the top of the home console market. With a new design, cheaper price, and strong ad push, the PS3 Slim beat out the Wii and Xbox 360 by moving nearly 492,000 units.

Though the story around the water cooler tends to end there, I decided to look into the numbers a bit more, managing to find a few more points of interest that should bolster Sony’s confidence.

This month sees the highest number of PlayStation 3 systems sold ever, even edging out the sales from December 2006, the first holiday season that the system was available.
This is the first month in the past year where the PS3 has sold over the Xbox 360.
This month marks the first time the PS3 has ever overtaken the Wii in terms of hardware sold.
As far as I can tell, this is the first month where the PS3 version of a game has appeared above the 360 version on the software sales list. That game is Batman: Arkham Asylum.

All great milestones for Sony, though it’s best not to get too far ahead of ourselves here. Playing Devil’s Advocate for a moment, the number of systems sold could be slightly inflated by owners of the original PS3 simply upgrading their hardware to the newly released Slim model, meaning that the install base may not have grown as significantly as the numbers lead one to believe. Also, when discussing the sales of Batman: Arkham Asylum, it must be pointed out that the PlayStation version of the game does have special content tied to it that is unavailable in the Xbox 360 version. Madden NFL 10, another big cross-platform seller with no exclusive content for either system, sold better for the Xbox 360.

Debating with myself aside, the month of October should be the real indicator of Sony’s success or otherwise. The release of Uncharted 2, which has to be the most anticipated PS3 exclusive since Metal Gear Solid 4 (sorry Killzone 2 and inFamous), should have a big impact on both the hardware and software sides of things. Though it’s fun to speculate, the release of October’s numbers is when the real discussion can begin.

[Thanks to 1UP.com for their backlog of NPD data, which helped me compile my information for this piece.]