NPD: US hardware sales down 20% in February
Wii and PS3 shortages see Xbox 360 become number one home console seller
US hardware sales have, in line with software sales, seen another year-on-year decline in February, down by 20 per cent to a total of $426.4 million.
The latest NPD Group data does show an increase from January 2010 though, with much of the decline attributable to hardware shortages for both the Wii and PlayStation 3.
This gifted the Xbox 360 its best February result in its history and saw it become the best-selling home console in the US for the first time since September 2007 and the release of Halo 3.
Ultimately though the Nintendo DS remained, as usual, the best-selling console of the month with 613,200 combined sales for the DS Lite and DSi.
Xbox 360 sales came in at 422,000, with the Wii on 397,900 despite the widely reported stock problems and continued media suggestions of declining demand.
PlayStation 3 sales overcame their own stock problem to post a total of 360,100 units sold. This represents a 30 per cent increase on the same time last year.
There were no such excuses for the PSP though, which is now in real danger of being overtaken by the PlayStation 2, at 133,400 unit sales to 101,900.