14 DAY TRIAL // The most recent NPD Group figures released last week for the month of January on the United States market have again shown the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft as the best seller for the period and the only platform to see an increase in units moved to gamers when compared to the same period in 2010.
Analysts are saying that the PlayStation 3 from Sony saw a 3 percent decrease in sales over the same period but the management at Sony does not seem to be too concerned about the apparent decline.
Scott McCarthy, who is the senior brand manager for software at the PlayStation division at Sony, has stated, “So do we pass Xbox 360? At the moment, I think we’re trying to just keep up with inventory and trying to move as many units as we can through the channel.”
He went on to add, “It’s also one of those things where, do we notice what Microsoft is doing? Obviously, they are our competition. But is it like we surpass Microsoft or we fail? No. Our goal is to be profitable and we’re going to achieve that this year and do even better next year.”
After the NPD Group hardware and video game charts were announced, Sony only released a statement which talks about its “momentum” coming into the new year and about the impressive software line-up that the PlayStation 3 enjoys.
McCarthy said that Sony is beginning to focus more on how well the PlayStation division is performing on its own and will make less comparisons with the Xbox 360.
The executive also believes that 2011 will be a huge one of the platform, with expanded support for the Move motion tracking peripheral and with a host of big games that are exclusives, like the recently launched Killzone 3 but also SOCOM 4 and Resistance 3.