NPD: Xbox 360 Soars Past PS3 in September Sales

Microsoft slashed the price of all three of its Xbox 360 models last month, and those substantial cuts paid dividends, according to September NPD sales. The Xbox 360 enjoyed "in the ball park" projected sales given the price drop, according to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Group PR Manager David Dennis, who spoke with Game On as NPD's numbers were going out. "September is typically a slow month, so even taking the price cut into consideration, we did very well."

While the Xbox 360 "is now the most affordable next generation console on the market," according to Microsoft, at "$50 less than the Wii and half the price of the PlayStation 3," Nintendo still managed to clean Microsoft and Sony's clock with a supply-driven 34 percent sales surge, up from 453k units in August to 687k units in September.

September also marked "the first true monthly decline the industry has experienced since March of 2006," according to NPD analyst Anita Frazier, who added that this month's 7 percent decline is against September 2007, which was itself up 75 percent from September 2006. NPD analyst David Riley further notes that Frazier is referring to NPD's January 2008 data-of-record, but since January 2008 was a four-week month compared to January 2007 (five weeks) January 2008 actually had higher weekly sales, and was "therefore not a true decline for [September 2008]."

Overall? I'm with NPD when they write "the health of the video games industry remains quite strong despite the rocky economic conditions." Based on typical fall and holiday sales trends, NPD predicts we're still on track to hit record $22 billion revenue, and that's not counting PC games.

687k - Wii

537k - Nintendo DS

347k - Xbox 360

238k - PSP

232k - PlayStation 3

174k - PlayStation 2