Market research firm NPD Group has released new video game sales figures for the month of September. It may not come as any surprise that Microsoft’s Halo 3 led the month by a wide margin, selling 3.3 million copies during the five-week retail period—a total more than double the sales fives of the rest of the top-ten sellers combined. And the popularity of Halo 3 also translated to Xbox 360 sales, with Microsoft moving 528,000 of its video game consoles, almost double its sales for the month of August and, for the first time, beating out the Nintendo Wii for the top console sales slot.
Amongst game consoles, the Nintendo Wii still saw strong sales, moving another 501,000 game systems during September. In comparison, Sony managed to sell 215,000 PlayStation 2 consoles, but only 119,400 Blu-ray equipped PlayStation 3 systems. Sony is looking to boost the sales profile of the PlayStation 3 by introducing a new 40 GB edition of the PS3 at $399, but that new PS3 edition will not be compatible with the vast library of PS2 or PSOne games—a fact which has Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO JAck Tretton commenting that users should just go out and buy a PS2 if they want PS2 compatibility.
Amongst portable game systems, the Nintendo DS sold 495,800 units, while the PlayStation Portable moved 284,500 units.
Behind Halo 3, Nintendo’s Wii Play took the number two sales slot, and Nintendo DS title The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass took the number three position.
