Sony's Tretton Hails 'Amazing' September For PS3, Expects Holiday Success

At last, PlayStation 3 came out ahead of both Wii and Xbox 360 in September's NPD results, driven by the launch of the newly-slimlined $299 console, and Sony Computer Entertainment of America president Jack Tretton says he's looking forward to "one of our best holidays yet." "Nearly half a million of you purchased a PS3 in September. Amazing," said the exec in a statement, hailing the price cut, the PSP Go, the new $349 250 GB PS3 debuting in November and the launch of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, among other upcoming platform exclusives. The $299 PS3, Tretton notes, topped one million units in just three weeks at retail; "It was also the only hardware platform to realize an increase of 112 percent when compared to the same period last year," he says. Sony continues, however, to avoid breaking out specifics of the PSP Go's sales performance, preferring instead to highlight its boost to the PSP platform overall -- the recently-announced 300 percent lift in overall PSP hardware sales compared to the week before it launched. "During this time, the PlayStation Network also experienced the largest number of downloads ever for a single week period," adds Tretton.