NPD: US hardware sales rise across the board

US hardware sales for every format are up on all formats, according to the latest NPD data.

Each platform topped its sales when compared to last month, with the DS leading the way at 1.70 million units. The only other platform to shift more than 1 million was the Wii, with 1.26 million consoles sold in November.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 are only 100,000 units apart, with 819,500 and 710,400 consoles sold respectively. Finally, the rest of the PlayStation family racks up close to 500,000 units together – PSP shifted 293,900 units, while PS2 sold 203,100 units.

However, NPD analyst Anita Frazier warns in her accompanying report that this does not necessarily mean a full resurgence in the hardware market.

All hardware systems an increase over October but one would expect that from seasonality alone,” she said. While there has been a lot of focus on Wii sales as compared to last year, the system was still the best-selling console system by a margin of 54 per cent.

At this same point in the PS2 lifecycle, the PS2 was down in unit sales by 23 per cent over the previous year, but as history has show, it continues to have a great deal of life left in it. So focusing on a comparison to Wii’s stellar 2008 performance masks the reality of just how well the system is selling.

The PS3 realized the greatest increase over last year’s November sales and had its third best month in unit sales ever, coming in just under December 2007 and 2008.”

Frazier went on to add that she was really impressed” by the PS2’s sales in its109th month in the market. Its November 2009 sales of over 200,000 represent only a minor decline when compared to the same month last year.