Console War Sales: Microsoft's Xbox 360 vs Sony's PlayStation 3 vs Nintendo's Wii

The intriguing market reports in the next-gen console wars are indicating head to head competition: PlayStation 3 to win console war, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii best sales.

According to CNBC, PlayStation 3 is dead last in the console war, with only a reported 750,000 SKUs sold. The Wii came in a close second with 1.8 million units sold from its launch and during the holidays. Although, the Xbox 360 wins with more than 2 million units sold.

Market analyst NPD officialy reported that preliminary figures showed the Xbox 360 sold almost two million consoles in North America, with the Wii running it close with 1.8 million.

This 2006 holiday shopping season was expected to be the most competitive showdown in gaming history, as the big three console makers all vied for the top spot in the lucrative North American market. But problems arose almost immediately.

While the Wii and the latest generation of PlayStation had only limited numbers available, Microsoft's Xbox 360 first went on sale a year ago, providing Redmond with ample time to work out any manufacturing kinks that might have affected sales at the end of 2006.

According to the datamonitor recent-sourced study; "The Transforming Global Video Games Market: The Emergence of Next Generation Gaming," nearly 75 million PS3 systems are expected to be sold worldwide by 2010, a number that will outdo that of of the Xbox 360 and Wii.

The Xbox 360 is the successor to Microsoft's Xbox video game console, developed in cooperation with IBM, ATI, Samsung and SiS.
The PlayStation 3 is Sony's seventh generation era video game console, third in the PlayStation series.
The Wii is a video game console released by Nintendo, and is the successor to the Nintendo GameCube.