Report: Sony Sold 490,700 PS3s in U.S..

Sony Corp., beset by supply issues, sold 490,700 PlayStation 3 game consoles in the United States in December, according to figures research firm NPD Group released Thursday.

Combined with NPD's earlier estimate of PS3 sales in November, that indicates Sony sold 687,700 PS3s from the Nov. 17 U.S. launch to the end of the year.

Sony has said it shipped 1 million PS3s to North America in 2006, but that figure includes Mexico and Canada, and some of the units may not have reached stores in time to be sold.

NPD said Microsoft Corp. sold 1.1 million of its competing Xbox 360 console in December, while Nintendo Co. sold 604,200 units of its new console, the Wii. Like Sony, Nintendo contended with supply shortages.

Analysts are closely watching sales of the new generation of consoles because they could indicate which platform becomes the dominant one. The Xbox 360, which came out last year, has had a head start.

"There was clearly a huge dearth of inventory of PS3s," said Anita Frazier, an analyst with NPD Group, who added that Sony "could have sold multiples of that figure if they could have provided supply to retail."

"This was the biggest month yet for Xbox 360 hardware sales, but is pretty in line with what an established system can do during the holidays," Frazier said.

"Xbox 360 is now poised to really take advantage of its lead in this generation's race, provided they (and third-party supporters) keep bringing the games to market that keep consumers wanting to play on that system," Frazier said.

December sales of the Xbox 360 were beat by the 1.4 million units Sony sold of its older and cheaper PlayStation 2.

In all, consumers spent $3.7 billion on video game software and hardware during the month, up 28 percent.

The top game sold was the Xbox title "Gears of War," by Microsoft.

"They had a hot title in 'Gears of War' and highly sought after titles always drive hardware acquisition as well," Frazier said.

Representatives of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo weren't immediately available for comment.