Both Microsoft (MSFT) and Nintendo (NTDOY) had a big week of console sales during Black Friday’s week of shopping madness in the U.S. So how did Sony (SNE) do in comparison? Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton announced on Thursday that the company sold 525,000 PlayStation 3 consoles and 160,000 PS Vita handhelds during the Black Friday week. Overall PlayStation sales of hardware, software and accessories are up 9% over the same period last year. Tretton was also happy to reveal that subscriptions to its PlayStation Plus grew 259% since last year with customer satisfaction flying high at 95% after Sony added the Instant Game Collection to the service earlier this year.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PS Vita sales were largely bolstered by $199.99 bundles packaged with free games that the company pushed to retails on Black Friday. The sell-out of the bundles within minutes at retailers such as Amazon (AMZN) is a good indicator that there is huge demand for a sub-$200 PlayStation 3. Currently, the lowest-priced PS3 is a second-gen 160GB slim model with an MSRP of $249.99. The redesigned third-gen PS3s start at $269.99 with a 250GB hard drive.
In terms of which home console did the best over Black Friday, it looks like the Xbox 360’s 750,000 consoles took first place, while Sony came in second with 525,000 PS3s and Nintendo came in third with 400,000 Wii U systems.
