While one analyst projects that February U.S. videogame software sales were down slightly, another says that they were up slightly.

Ahead of Thursday's NPD Group U.S. sales figures, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said in a research note Monday that he expects home and handheld console software sales in February to have reached $710 million, up 5.6 percent from last February's $672 million.

Last month's Street Fighter IV from Capcom and the PS3-exclusive Killzone 2 from Sony were the likely sales drivers at retail.

Although Killzone 2 is expected to be a top seller during February, its true impact on software and hardware sales may not be seen until March, as the game released at the tail-end of February.

Pachter forecasts continued strong sales of Guitar Hero: World Tour, Call of Duty: World at War, Rock Band 2, Wii Fit and Wii Play.

He expects the PS3 to have sold 200K units, as opposed to the 725K projected sales for Wii and 300K for Xbox 360. PS2 sales declined 62 percent year-on-year in February to 100K, while PSP and DS sold 175K and 500K, respectively, the analyst predicted.

He added, "Wii shipments have increased significantly since September, and we expect higher year-over-year shipments to continue through mid-2009. We expect Wii hardware supply and demand finally to balance by March or April."

Strong hardware sales will be key for healthy software sales during the course of the year. "...Combined console and handheld hardware unit sales were up 30 percent year-over-year with almost 2 million hardware units sold in the month, giving us confidence that strong software performance is sustainable well into 2009."