Sony sells 1.2 million PlayStation 3 machines in North America over holidays

TOKYO — Sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 game machine sales totaled 1.2 million in North America during the key holiday season, the electronics and entertainment company said Monday. The performance gave a lift to its Blu-ray video format because the console also works as a Blu-ray player.

Competition is intense among the latest video game machines, pitting Sony Corp. against Nintendo Co.'s popular Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s XBox 360. Despite the strong holiday sales for the PS3, more Wiis have sold than PS3s since the consoles debuted in late 2006.

But the rivalry between the two of the latest video formats — Blu-ray and HD DVD — appears to be tipping toward the former after Warner Bros. Entertainment, formerly a supporter of the Toshiba-backed HD DVD format, defected to the Blu-ray side over the weekend.

Both formats deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, but they are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. Only one format is expected to emerge as the winner, much like VHS trumped Sony's Betamax in the video format battle of the 1980s.

Blu-ray discs can hold about two-thirds more data than HD DVD discs but the technology requires new manufacturing techniques and factories, boosting initial costs.

HD DVDs, on the other hand, are essentially DVDs on steroids, meaning movie studios can turn to existing assembly lines to produce them en masse.

Attracting movie studios is critical for making the format widespread. Now, just two major U.S. studios support HD DVD — Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, which also owns DreamWorks SKG, and Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric Co.

Sony can hope to gain more sales in its core electronics products, including Blu-ray recorders and high-definition flat-panel TVs, if consumers choose Blu-ray. That may also aid it in its struggle against the popularity of the Wii machine from Nintendo, which went on sale about the same time as the PS3, attracting newcomers to gaming with easy-to-play games that use a wandlike remote-controller.

"The PlayStation brand ended the year in a very strong position and clearly indicates more positive momentum going into 2008," said Jack Tretton, president and chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America.

"The strong PS3 sales also further establish Blu-ray's dominant position as the high-definition medium of choice for games and movies," he said in a statement.