Despite being trumped by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in the October hardware sales battle, Sony still has reason to celebrate NPD’s North American October sales figures with some impressive rises for its PS3 console.

Sales of the machine are up 56 per cent on October 2007, with total unit sales of 190,000 units. Year-to-date climbs are even more impressive, so far reaching 90 per cent.

Software sales have climbed further still, with 2.3 million unit sales representing a year-on-year improvement of 200 per cent. The month saw Sony release a number of key first party titles, including LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift and SOCOM: Confrontation.

There was also an impressive increase in the number of PS3 users registering on Sony’s PlayStation Network – total user registration has increased by 166 per cent since January, bringing its total user base to 14 million. 270 million pieces of content have been downloaded to date.

The supposedly dying PSP also continued its quiet, understated yet undoubted success, with year-to-date sales so far improving on 2009 by nine per cent.

A Sony statement reads: “Year-to-date, the PlayStation brand has generated almost $4.4 billion in revenue, representing an increase of 18 per cent. PlayStation total hardware revenue was $131 million in October, and $1.7 billion year-to-date, representing a growth of 19 per cent. PlayStation total software revenue in October was $209 million, and $2.2 billion year-to-date, representing a growth of 23 per cent.”