The July video game sales numbers for the United States have been released, and Microsoft enjoyed some huge gains. This is what happens when you release a smaller system with much-needed built-in wireless for a good price. The Xbox 360 was the best-selling system of the month, with 443,500 units sold.
How did the rest of the systems do? In order:
Xbox 360: 443,500
Nintendo DS: 398,400
Nintendo Wii: 253,900
PlayStation 3: 214,500
PSP: 84,000
It's not all terrible news for Sony; that number represents a boost for the PlayStation 3 over 2009. "The PS3 and the Xbox 360 platforms both saw significant increases over July '09," NPD analyst Anita Frazier wrote. "In fact, Xbox 360 was the top-selling hardware platform for the month, driven by sales of the new slim format SKU. It's the first time since September '07 (Halo 3 launch) that the 360 was the top-selling hardware platform."
These numbers are endlessly spinnable, and of course Nintendo gamely explained how it won. "Nintendo sold more than 650,000 video game systems in July—more than any other company," the company announced. "These tallies bring the 2010 US sales totals through the end of July for Nintendo DS to more than 3.4 million and Wii to more than 2.71 million."
Video game sales dropped 8 percent from July last year, with sales of $8.18 billion in 2009 and $7.51 billion in 2010.