PS3 Beat Out Xbox in January

February 2008 By Stephen Silver

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Sony’s victory in the hi-def DVD format war was not its only good news to star the week- the Japanese electronics giant’s PlayStation 3 console passed Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in January to become the #2 gaming console in January.

According to NPD Group figures cited by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, 269,000 units of the PS3 were sold in the U.S. in January, which beat out the Xbox by nearly 40,000. The Wii, once again, led with 274,000 units sold.

“’Coming off a great holiday season we see strong momentum behind PS3 in 2008, and feel confident about the year ahead,” Sony’s American CEO, Jack Tretton, said in a statement.

The PS3, of course, contains a Blu-ray Disc player, meaning that sales could be spurred now that Blu-ray has won the format war.

In addition, an iSuppli survey released late last week predicted that Sony will regain the global gaming lead by 2011, and put Sony’s 2008 “global base” at 10 million, ahead of the 360’s 7.5 million but behind the Wii’s 12.2 million.

Can the PS3 really pull ahead? Talk about it in the Dealerscope forums.

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