According to analysts sales of Sony's Playstation 3 (PS3) console have increased around 21% in the USA for June, although the Playstation 3 is still trailing the Xbox 360 and Wii consoles. NPD Group who are a tracking firm say Sony sold 98,500 Playstation 3 (PS) consoles compared to 198,400 Microsoft Xbox 360s and 381,800 Nintendo Wii's. The figures show sales of all consoles were up, which doesn't make good reading for Sony as the Xbox 360 sales rose 28% compared to the 21% for the Playstaion 3, Nintendo's very successful Wii increased its sales by 13%.

Sony are claiming that over the past two weeks sales of the Playstation 3 have increased 135% since the $100 price cut on the 60GB Playstation 3, although these claims have yet to be verified by an independent company. Jack Tretton who is the head of Sony Computer Entertainment America said This jump in sales bodes very well for us heading into the fall as we launch an impressive arsenal of hardware and software."

No doubt the Playstation fanboys will be throwing these figures around on the gaming forums, but we think it needs to be kept in perspective as the price cut was only in the USA and not Europe or Japan. Gamers in Europe already have to pay a premium on top of the American price of the Playstation 3 and seeing that our friends on the other side of the pond now can get the Playstation 3 even cheaper I think many consumers in Europe will hold of purchasing a Playstation 3.

Also the figures released show that software sales on all consoles were up 31% on the same period for last year, no doubt down to the new consoles from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. Sales reached $1.1 billion for last month.