• by Shankar Gupta , December 14, 2007

NPD released sales numbers for the month of November yesterday, showing an early picture of where holiday shoppers are putting their dollars. It seems pretty clear that Sony's drubbing continues, even though the company is doing its best to paint a rosy picture.

The good news for Sony is that its console sales for the PS3 are up 285% from October and its software sales saw an increase of 128%, month-over-month. Which does sound like good news, except for the fact that every other major console did better: Nintendo sold 981,000 Wiis and Microsoft sold 777,000 Xbox 360s compared to Sony's 466,000 sold PS3 consoles. The handheld Nintendo DS sold 1.53 million units, more than all of Sony's hardware sales combined.

The reason Sony's sales continue to lag is made pretty obvious by the top-ten charts NPD released today: it haven't got the games. On the top of the list for November is the Xbox version of "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" (an excellent title, if you haven't played); the PS3 version of the same game sits at #7. Following "Call of Duty 4" are "Super Mario Galaxy" and "Assassins Creed" for the 360 -- an exclusive and another multiplatformer, the PS3 version of which just hangs on at #10. The list is bereft of PS3 exclusives, and has a pair of 360 exclusives: "Halo 3" (very good) and "Mass Effect" (even better), and a pair of Wii exclusives. Until Sony starts to offer the same quality and quantity of exclusive titles that are available for the 360, the bulk of gamers simply won't consider laying down $500 for a Blu-Ray player that also plays mediocre Xbox 360 ports.