PlayStation 3 Hardware Sales Up over Last Year, Lifetime Sales Pass 30 Million

Speaking to the strength of the PlayStation 3's mid-2009 price cut, maker Sony has revealed that the past nine months of hardware sales have already surpassed those of FY 2008.

Though FY 2009 doesn't end until March 2010, the PlayStation 3 has already sold 10.8 million units between April and December 2009. Of that 10.8 million, over half--6.5 million--were sold between October and December 2009.

As for FY 2008, 10.1 million PS3s were sold between April 2008 and March 2009.

In all, the PlayStation 3 has now racked up lifetime sales of 33.71 million units--a number reached by adding up the quarterly sales figures Sony has reported over the years.

Nintendo's Wii now has an installed base of 67.45 million across the world. As for the Xbox 360, January 2009 saw Microsoft boasting that it had topped 39 million units, with "a record 6 million units sold" between October and December 2009.

And while PlayStation 2 and PSP sales have dropped--PSP is down 3.5M units over this time last year, the PS2 .9 million-- Sony claims the profitability of its game business is "relatively unchanged mainly due to an improvement in the cost of PS3 hardware."