Software was up 9 percent, even on a tough comp, generating $733.5 million. There were a couple interesting data points on the software front.
First, there’s Street Fighter IV, which captured the second and third place slots on the SKU-specific top 10 sellers list by units. The $60 sequel sold the most units overall when combining the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
What’s notable is that the two versions were within 43K units of each other, a relatively narrow margin which hasn’t been the norm with big Xbox 360 and PS3 cross-platform releases. The Xbox 360 version sold 446K, while the PS3 version sold 403K.
The share was split 53 percent to 47 percent, despite the fact that Xbox 360’s U.S. installed base is about twice that of PS3 currently.
The major 2008 holiday release Call of Duty: World at War (which admittedly is a very different game than Street Fighter IV) showed a much greater disparity. The Xbox 360 version of the shooter sold 1.4 million units, the PS3 version 597K when they launched.
Xbox 360 is certainly shooter friendly, and online console shooter fans are particularly partial to Xbox Live. So let’s have a look at how another fighting game stacked up in terms of U.S. unit share between PS3 and Xbox 360.
While not quite as equal as Street Fighter IV sales, July 2008’s Soul Calibur IV share was relatively close on both Xbox 360 and PS3 in its opening month, with sales of 218.9K and 155.8K, respectively. We haven't gathered specific data, but a greater disparity between cross-platform Xbox 360 and PS3 releases seems to be most prominent with shooters and games that have robust and deep online modes, a trend that exhibits the upside of Xbox Live.