Halo 3 helps Xbox 360 dominate sales

A lot of gaming fans say the big mistake Sony made with the PlayStation 3 was not creating enough great software to go with the great hardware.

Maybe they're right.

Look at what the excellent "Halo 3" game has done for Xbox 360. The game, which set U.S. sales records, was largely responsible for driving the biggest month in US video game history.

The NPD Group, which tracks the videogame industry, said Xbox 360 was the top-selling console in terms of sales in September. Xbox 360 outsold PlayStation 3 at a rate of five to one.

The Xbox 360 also benefitted from a recent price point drop -- to $349.99 for the regular 360 and to $449.99 for the Xbox 360 Elite series.

Xbox 360 sales sales shot up 50 percent in September, to more than 528,000. Nintendo sold 501,000 Wiis and Sony moved only 119,000 PS3 units.

PlayStation 3 sales were down 27 percent in September.

Other notes from the NPD report:

-- Xbox 360 software revenue at retail outsold PS3’s software portfolio 8:1 and Wii’s 4:1, selling 3 times more than both platforms combined.

-- For the month of September according to NPD, Xbox 360 software represented 74 percent of total software sales for the next generation market compared to 17 percent for Wii and 9 percent for PS3. Even without the sales of “Halo 3” the Xbox 360 portfolio outsold the PS3 portfolio 2:1.

-- According to the world-wide authority in entertainment reviews, Metacritic, Xbox 360 has 80 titles with a Metacritic review score of 80 or higher compared to just 31 for PS3 and 11 for Wii.

-- In September, Xbox 360 held six spots in the Top Ten Console Games. The $130 “Halo 3: Legendary Edition” alone sold twice as many units as the top title for PS3 “Heavenly Sword” (SCE)