Sony Trumpets Growth During Industry Slide

In his response to today's NPD results, SCEA boss Jack Tretton has highlighted the system's year-over-year uptick and revealed worldwide sales for some of its first party titles, including Uncharted 2 and MAG. Via the company's official blog, Tretton points out that NPD research indicates that while global spending on software slid 9 percent in 2009, the PlayStation 3 has seen a 15 percent increase in its software sales. He also points out that the console's sales have grown year-over-year while others have slipped -- though it's worth noting, of course, that the PlayStation 3 is still in overall third place in the U.S. console market. Calling December 2009 the platform's "best sales month," Tretton reveals that alongside its sales of over 1 million consoles, 7.3 million units of sofware were sold -- without supplying January numbers. He did, however, say there has been "tight inventory" of the system since its price drop and introduction of the so-called Slim hardware revision last fall. According to Tretton, worldwide sales of Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2 are close to breaking the 3 million unit barrier, and have surpassed sales of the original game. And while he says that "over half a million of you have already chosen your allegiance in MAG, and have played over 270,000 games in the Shadow War," it's unclear how many copies of Zipper Interactive's game sold that represents. Though MAG was released on January 26 in the U.S., it did not make the NPD top 10, though it did crack the Japanese top 10 for its week of release, as well as show strong first and second week sales in the UK. Reiterating the already-revealed 155 percent year-over-year increase in PlayStation Network revenue, Tretton reveals that the service has more than 40 million users. No mention was made by Tretton of the company's other two platforms, the PlayStation 2 and PSP.