14 DAY TRIAL // The numbers offered by the NPD Group shows that the new Xbox 360 from Microsoft has sold better for the month of July than the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3 from Sony, topping the hardware chart.
The new console, which is all black, is quieter and uses less energy than the initial design of the Xbox 360, has managed to sell 443,500 units during its first full month on sales to reach the number one position and boost overall hardware sales on the United States market.
Second place in the chart went to the Nintendo DS line up of handhelds with sales of 398,400 units, which is significantly less than the close to 600,000 it has managed during the same period of 2009.
Third place also goes to Nintendo and its Wii home console, managing to sell 253,900 devices, a little more than during the same month in 2009.
The PlayStation 3 sits in fourth place, with sales of 214,500 units. This is almost double the figure seen in July 2009 but it still makes Sony look bad when compared with Microsoft and the Xbox 360
The PlayStation Portable sold 84,000 units during the month, with Sony certainly thinking about how to replace the handheld in the coming months.
Overall revenue derived from sales of gaming related hardware went up by 12% over the same month of last year, which indicates that producers managed to move more consoles and offset the reductions in their price that were announced during the 12 month period.
The value of hardware sales for the month of July 2010 reached 313.8 million dollars.
Analysts and retailers are hoping that sales will continue their rise in the fall of this year, with the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 boosting their figures thanks for the launch of Kinect and the PlayStation Move, the motion tracking peripherals that arrive in November and September.