Foster City, Calif. – Sony sold more than 525,000 PlayStation3 consoles in the United States during the week of Black Friday, topping previously reported sales of Nintendo’s new Wii U, but short of the 750,000 units that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 sold in the period.
Sony Computer Entertainment reported Thursday its six-year-old gaming console notched a 9 percent sales spike over Black Friday week last year. In contrast, Nintendo’s new Wii U saw sales of more than 400,000 units, but the company’s CEO said the number was smaller only because Nintendo ran out of inventory.
Microsoft reported earlier that it sold more than 750,000 units of its aging Xbox 360 consoles in various configurations during the week.
The playing field is expected to get much more interesting next year, when Sony and Microsoft are supposed to launch next-generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles, but with video game play moving more and more into the smartphone and tablet space, the gaming developers will have more pressure than ever to prove the validity of dedicated gaming stations.
