TOKYO (AP) — 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 ( SNE ). against Nintendo Co.’s popular Wii and Microsoft Corp.’s ( MSFT , Fortune 500 ) 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 ( TWX , Fortune 500 ), 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 in mass. Attracting movie studios is critical for making the format widespread. Now, just two major U.S. studios support HD DVD — Viacom Inc.’s ( VIAB , Fortune 500 ) Paramount Pictures, which also owns DreamWorks SKG, and Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric Co.