US: PS3 tops 360 in June hardware sales

If there’s one thing that was evident from

Sony’s E3 conference

it was the firm’s confidence in its range of platforms,

and in particular the PS3

– and this self-belief has now been backed up by news that North American sales of the PS3 in June were very nearly double those of rival Xbox 360.

June NPD figures show that PS3 sold a total of 405,500 units in the period, far in excess of Xbox 360’s 219,800 unit sales. The success was attributed mainly to the release of Konami’s popular Metal Gear Solid 4.

However, it must be pointed out that it was also far behind Wii’s sales of 666,700. Xbox 360 was also outsold by Sony’s PSP, which shifted 337,400 machines.

Everyone, of course, was outstripped by DS which shifted a huge 783,000 units in the period.

Still, it would be foolish to write off Microsoft’s machine, which is enjoying impressive year-on-year sales increases. And as much as Sony portrayed belief in its own machine at E3, Microsoft’s Don Mattrick was not shy in clearly proclaiming that Xbox 360 will outsell the PS3 in this console generation” at his firm’s E3 gathering.