American Folks: Get Searching For One Of These If You Want One.

Some people in the industry are laughing off Sony’s claims of stock shortages in the US, but it actually appears to be a genuine issue for the company. According to GameStop Executive VP of Merchandising, the issue of PS3 stock shortages are likely to go on for the next few months. Despite Sony being pestered for more stock, Bartel concluded that his company “could sell a lot more hardware than what we have on the PS3 platform,” and that the situation is unlikely to change until the summer.

If you want a PS3 and you’re in the US, get hunting.

The Playstation Portable's A Sales Machine In Japan Right Now.

Sony’s Playstation Portable is still top of the Japanese hardware charts. This week it managed another 39k sales, with the PS3 mustering 26k. The PSPgo continues to flounder at the bottom of the charts with just over 1,000 units sold in the past week. Pretty disasterous.

But Sony probably won’t care well the regular SKU of their handheld system is topping the charts. Will anything catch it?

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Can Probably Be Considered A Success.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a military, multiplayer shooter has sold a ton of copies in Europe and the US. That’s right: EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has mustered sales of over 2.3 million over the last couple of weeks.

Interestingly, aswell as the hard sales figures, EA has provided some more light-hearted facts pertaining to the game’s success, such as 81 billion points racked up in multiplayer games, 6 million video views on YouTube and in the past 24 hours, 2.9 million hours have been spent playing online. Impressive stuff.

We properly digged the game. You can check out our review through here.

The L.A. Times Are Reporting That PS3 Stock Shortages Could Hinder God Of War III's Performance.

March: officially the biggest month in Playstation 3’s history. Not only has the month already seen the arrival of Final Fantasy XIII, a traditionally Playstation franchise, but it’s also about to witness the arrival of one of Playstation’s biggest exclusive franchises: God Of War III.

Sadly, there’s a hitch. While Sony have two of the biggest games possible this month, they’re also struggling to meet stock demands in America – arguably where the region they simply need to be delivering in.

The L.A. Times notes that depleted stock across America (both retail and online) could hinder God Of War III’s potential performance for the month of March.

“It’s not ideal, I won’t kid you,” Sony’s Jack Tretton said of the situation. “But I firmly believe we’ll get our hardware back in stock and keep selling God of War III for a long time.”

Still, stock shortages in a month where Playstation 3 should be ripping the competition to threads are a little concerning. But then – it’s a concern Sony will be pleased to have, considering the slow start the system had in the US.

“We ultimately don’t make investments on a product-by-product or month-by-month basis, but rather we invest in our platform,” Tretton said, explaining Sonny’s marketing and support strategy.

“This game will pay off for us with the people who own a PlayStation 3 and the ones who will buy one in the future.”

If you’re in America and want a Playstation 3, we insist you get phoning around stores right about now.

Hadouken: Japan Still Loves The PSP.

We’re quickly running out of things to say about the PSP’s performance in Japan. It’s consistently shifting lots of units and, erm, yeah – surprise it’s top again! Betcha didn’t expect that did you? Mwahaha.

Sigh. The figures are after the jump.

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No Surprise Seeing Final Fantasy XIII Top The Charts Now Is It?

Final Fantasy XIII has shot straight to the top of the UK sales charts, with the PS3 version of the game managing 54% of the sales. Not the hugest of discrepancies between the SKUs, but it’s often rare a PS3 multiplatform game outsells its XBOX 360 rival – particularly when Microsoft have broken the metaphorical bank marketing the game exclusive to their platform.

Most exciting for us about this week’s chart is the position of Heavy Rain, still clutching tightly to the number four spot. Game’s not gonna sell right?

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The Hardware Charts For February Paint A Pretty Picture For All Three Hardware Manufacturers.

Despite losing out to the Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and XBOX 360, there are very positive signs for the industry in general in February’s NPD. Namely that every major piece of hardware sold pretty well, with just 62,000 units between the XBOX 360 and the Playstation 3.

Sony shifted 360,100 units for the month of February, a pretty impressive statistic considering the time of the year. The PSP and PS2 also managed a further 230k between them.

Most pleasing is that Quantic Dream’s ambitious thriller Heavy Rain managed to climb into the top ten. It was only on-sale for five days in February. Congrats all around.

Full hardware charts are after the jump.

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