Sony’s October NPD Spin Focuses on Optimism

With the exception of the PSP, Sony didn’t have a particularly great October. Neither the PlayStation 2 or PlayStation 3 made any sort of noise, the PS3 version of Guitar Hero III failed to make it into the top 10 selling software SKUs, and Ratchet & Clank Future didn’t even manage to crack 100k sales.

So the word of the day (or month, as the case may be) for Sony Computer Entertainment America is apparently optimism and looking forward to the upcoming holiday rush.

SCEA expects a great deal of momentum moving forward this holiday and beyond with the availability of new PS3 hardware and pricing.  Based on internal data, the company is already seeing a great spike in sales with a 192% lift for the PS3 over the past two weeks.   In fact, as reported by Howard Stringer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sony Corporation of America, 100,000 units of the PLAYSTATION 3 were sold at retail just last week.

Sony also compared total retail dollars (note: not profit) to the previous year’s which are of course up, thanks to having another console on the market.

Overall the PlayStation brand showed a 39% increase in total retail dollars generated year-over-year in the US with total sales of $353.4 million for the month.  Overall, SCEA’s console business remains strong with combined sales of PS3 and PS2 for the month of October at $258.5 million in revenue.

It seems even Sony is acknowledging they didn’t win this past month, and that November and December are really going to be what they rely on to make a push forward.