Playstation 3 Hardware May Be Flying Off The Shelves A Little Too Quickly.

Sony’s warned that Playstation 3 stock will be tight over the coming months. SCEA’s director of communications, Patrick Seybold explained the company are working hard to ensure stock is available for everyone. “We’re working very hard with our retail partners to meet consumer interest, but the demand is tremendously high for the PS3 and we expect tight inventory in the coming months,” Seybold noted in a statement.

Seybold told Joystiq that the tight stock situation may have been a reason for the slightly lower NPD sales this month. “Yes. The strong demand carrying through the holidays was evident and early in the month we [knew] there was going to be limited supply of the PS3 at retail in January. We’re working closely with the retail channel to meet this demand, but expect tight supply for the coming months.”

We’ve heard a few rumblings regarding stock situation. Hopefully Sony can sort that out as they’re on the verge of releasing arguably two of the biggest titles in the Playstation’s history, Heavy Rain and God Of War III.

Playstation 3 Fared Well This January, Lost Out To Microsoft & Nintendo.

Despite a decent month for January in the US, Sony’s PS3 lost out to both the XBOX 360 and Nintendo Wii for the month of January, according to the NPDs. Sony shifted 276.9k units during the month, a respectable number, but they were some way off Microsoft’s 332.8k tally.

Regardless, both Sony and Microsoft fell to the might power of Nintendo once again, with the DS and Wii shifting almost 900k units between them.

PSP  managed just 100.1k with the PS2 still rolling along at 41.6k.

Overall January trade was down 13% in the US, with hardware dropping by a whopping 21% year on year.

Nintendo May Have Been King, But Sony Can Pat Themselves On The Back For Re-entering The Race.

Sony can claim a very minor victory over their closest rival the XBOX 360 today, after the December NPD reports revealed that the Playstation 3 came in just ahead of Microsoft’s XBOX 360 for the month. With 1.36million Playstation 3 hardware units sold for through the month of December (and in the US alone), Sony’s marketing department can officially pat themselves on the back for getting back into the game.

Sadly, their success again the XBOX 360 will be marred by Nintendo’s domination of both HD systems; with the Wii and DS scooping over 7million sales between them. Bonkers.

The raw data is after the jump.

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Pachter Predicts Glad Tidings For Sony This Christmas.

Pulling out his crystal ball for, presumably, the last time this year; seasoned American analyst Michael Pachter reckons Sony shifted 700,000 PS3 consoles in the last month. That’d be up 85% on Sony’s performance in the same period last year.

“We [Pachter's organisation, Wedbush Morgan] estimate sell-through of 1,050,000 Wii hardware units (down 49% from last year), 650,000 Xbox 360 (down 22% from last year), and 700,000 PS3 consoles (up 85% year over year),” said the analyst.

700,000 sounds like an awful lot doesn it? The NPD’s official numbers release on Thursday.

The Playstation 3 Still Managed A Decent Month In October.

Another NPD results post, another month, another fanboy war (we assume). America’s console and games sales charts are in. And they make for minor interesting reading. The Playstation 3’s sales are down this month (after a mammoth month in September, that’s to be expected) but Sony’s high-definition system still managed to beat out Microsoft’s XBOX 360, as the Wii sat in top position. The PSP and PS2 bottomed out the chart with still relatively strong sales, especially for the Playstation 2 which is nearing 10 or so years on sale.

Sony’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves dominated the software charts with 537k units sold, while NBA 2K10 fared quite well on the PS3 against the XBOX 360 SKU.

The hardware numbers are:

-Wii: 507K
-DS: 458K
-PS3: 321K
-360: 250K
-PSP: 175K
-PS2: 118K

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Looks Like Kevin Butler Has Worked Wonders For The Playstation's Fortunes.

The September NPDs are out. Cue fanboy fights across the world. As expected, the PS3 Slim managed to dominate competition, selling nearly 150,000 more units than closest competitor the XBOX 360, while coming just 32,000 units short of the market leading Nintendo DS.

Playstation 3 sales were up nearly double from the previous month, seeing a whopping 492,000 systems sold — figures SCEA must have hoped for but surely not expected. It’s a massive boost for Sony, with even the PSP seeing a 50,000 jump.

Software still remains an issue for Sony though, with just one Playstation game charting in the top ten; Batman: Arkham Asylum — although it’ll be pleasing for SCEA that the Playstation SKU of the game outsold the XBOX 360 one.

Sony will be looking for solid figures from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time during next month’s NPDs.

Hit the jump for the full figures:

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March 2009 American NPD Sales Data.

The American sales data, also known as the NPD’s, constantly bring the worst out of everyone. Particularly the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 fanboys. Boy does it bring the worst out of them!

The figures are in a predictable order, with Sony occupying the bottom half of the chart and Nintendo the top:

• Nintendo Wii – 601k.
• Nitendo DS – 563k.
• XBOX 360 – 330k.
• Playstation 3 – 218k.
• Playstation Portable – 168k.
• Playstation 2 – 112k.

We don’t know about you but we think the Playstation 3 fared reasonably well yet again, especially when you factor in that it is the most expensive system, during a recession, in a market that seems intent on ignoring the Playstation 3 despite the release of a huge amount of great software.

Wonder if the Playstation 2 will see a boost thanks to its price drop next month?