Leading US retailer GameStop has said that sales of Sony’s PS3 Slim have been “very strong” over the past month, in contrast to the “slow build” of the platform holder’s latest handheld, PSPgo.

Following the introduction of the slimmed down PS3 at a new, reduced price point, Sony’s console finally captured the top spot in monthly US home console sales during September, in the process outselling Xbox 360 for the first time in 14 months. According to GameStop merchandising and marketing exec Tony Bartel, the system performed well again the following month.

"We continue to see the [price drop] giving strong momentum to PS3. Obviously we had a strong surge when they initially dropped the price, and there was a lot of excitement around that, but we still see PS3 sales as very strong through October as well," Bartel told Industry Gamers.

Having launched on October 1, PSPgo failed to perform as well as its big brother during the month, although that came as no surprise to GameStop.

"We clearly supported it in all of our stores," Bartel said. "I think that, by Sony's own admission, you can tell by the small marketing that was done for this, that their mentality was more of a slow roll than a major launch. So this was clearly different than the way that Nintendo approached the DSi launch, and I think that was by design.

"I think the story is far from over and being written on the PSPgo,” he added. “I think Sony knew it was going to be more of a slow build as opposed to a right out of the gate huge release. I'm not sure that anyone that spent a lot of time working with Sony on the launch was really surprised by the way that it's gone so far."