PS3, PSP best-selling systems of June quarter

The console wars are being fiercely contested, but the latest round in the hardware fight has gone to Sony. The quarterly financial filings of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have provided some insight into the battle, revealing the PlayStation 3 and the PSP were the best-selling systems of the previous quarter, albeit by a slim margin.

The PS3 and its portable cousin were the best-selling hardware of the quarter.

Each company provided sales figures for the three months ended June 30 in their most recent filings, with Sony noting that the PS3 and PSP each added 1.8 million new systems to their installed bases. Microsoft wasn't far behind, with the Xbox 360 selling 1.7 million systems for the quarter.

Nintendo's platoon of platforms followed, with the Wii notching an extra 1.56 million systems sold, and the DS/DSi family of portables (excluding the 3DS) combining for 1.44 million systems sold. The 3DS brought up the rear with 710,000 systems sold, but that number is expected to pick up once Nintendo drops the system's price from $250 to $170, starting August 12.

While Sony's systems wound up at the same number, they came at it from opposite directions. The PS3's sales dropped significantly from the same period last year, when it sold 2.4 million systems. The three-month stretch (which included the PlayStation Network data breach and outage) was the worst sales performance for PS3 hardware in the past two years. On the other hand, the PSP saw a spike in sales, jumping up from 1.2 million systems sold for the same period the year before and posting its best non-holiday quarter system sales since July-September of 2009.

While the PSP rose and the PS3 declined on the hardware front, the two systems flip-flopped when it came to software. Sony reported 26.1 million PS3 games during the quarter, up from 24.8 million for the same period the year before. Meanwhile, the PSP saw its worst quarter of software sales in over two years, moving just 6.6 million copies.

Nintendo's hardware picture was particularly off, as sales of both the DS family of systems and the Wii were down in the neighborhood of 50 percent year-over-year. The company sold 3.15 million DS systems in the April-June quarter last year, and 3.04 million Wiis.

Nintendo's software sales were significantly higher than Sony's, but still down compared to the previous year. The company reported 12.13 million DS games sold, down from 22.42 million for the same period the year before. Wii software sales were also down sharply to 13.44 million, less than half the 28.17 million sold during the previous year's April-June quarter. As for the 3DS, Nintendo reported 4.53 million games sold for the handheld.

The Xbox 360 was also up year-over-year, as its 1.7 million systems sold topped the 1.5 million Microsoft sold the year before. Microsoft did not reveal software sales figures for the quarter.