Chart-Track hails strong Q1 as GT5 keeps PS3 motoring

There were more cat and mouse antics from Sony and Microsoft this week on the UK hardware sales front, with the release of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue spurring PlayStation 3 sales by 14 per cent as its post-Easter momentum continued.

Meanwhile Chart-Track data reveals that the software market as a whole for the first quarter was up 15 per cent year-on-year.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Chart-Track's Dorian Bloch said: "PlayStation 3 sales went up by 14 per cent for week 13, after going up 73 per cent the week before. Xbox 360 sales were down by 11 per cent."

The Xbox 360 recently enjoyed a major uplift following the pan-European price cut and according to Bloch, on week-on-week sales "PS3 is in the lead a bit right now but not by a huge amount."

That comment followed the earlier news that the Xbox 360 was on course to hit 2 million sales "next week".

Sony's budget-priced Gran Turismo 5: Prologue also topped the all-formats software charts retailing as a standalone boxed product and as part of an official hardware bundle. The game was also made available for digital download via the PlayStation Store, but its release was delayed following some problems.

Overall, Bloch said that the last week of the first quarter was "down ever so slightly" - with software down three percent by units and down five percent by value. However, he revealed that sales for the quarter as a whole were "up about 15 per cent year-on-year - the year so far is looking pretty good."