PS3 Sales Rise 13% At U.S. Retail In April

As Sony works toward a fix that would bring back PlayStation Network, the company reported a rise in hardware and software unit sales at U.S. retail for the month of April. Citing data from NPD Group, Sony Computer Entertainment America said hardware sales were up nearly 13 percent for the month, which would put sales at around 200,000 units in the U.S., up from 180,800 for April 2010. SCEA added that PS3 software unit sales were up 40 percent year-on-year at U.S. retail during the month. The company did not provide specific sales figures. Sony took down its PSN and Qriocity online services on April 21, a few days after it identified that its systems were attacked by an external party. A few days after PSN was taken down, Sony identified that the hack also affected its Station.com services. A total of around 100 million accounts have been potentially compromised. In a statement, SCEA senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold commented, "We continue to see a lot of great momentum at the retail level, and appreciate the support we've received from our partners, retailers and customers since the criminal attack on the PlayStation Network. We hope to have services restored as soon as we can."