Call of Duty 4, DS lead February NPD Charts

And the Xbox 360 ends up last out of the three new consoles again. Numbers inside.

Four months after release, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is still the darling of the US games scene.

Activision's war-game ended on top of the US sales chart for the second month in a row, new numbers for February from research firm NPD Group show. It was close, though.

Modern Warfare took the No. 1 position by just 1,000 sales, narrowly edging out second place finisher, Devil May Cry 4 for the Xbox 360. Capcom's new action game did well on its other platform too, selling another 233,500 units on the PlayStation 3.

All told, Microsoft's console dominated the software chart, taking five of the 10 top spots - a list that also includes Lost Odyssey, the second Xbox 360 RPG from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.

All this software didn't do Microsoft too many favours in console sales, though.

The Xbox 360 was again the poorest performer on the hardware chart. The chart was topped by the DS, which sold nearly 600,000 units in February - more than twice what it managed in January. All three of the new consoles improved on last month, though the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were only marginally better off.

Commenting on the numbers, Jack Tretton, head of PlayStation in the US, said he thought Blu-ray's recently confirmed victory of HD DVD in the next-generation DVD tussle "was the tipping point for many consumers".

Microsoft explained away its relatively poor showing, saying that the Xbox 360 was still "supply constrained" in February. In a statement, the company said that it was working to make sure it has no such problems when Grand Theft Auto IV arrives in late April.

Nintendo's Cammie Dunaway, meanwhile, said that the company was still riding high on its momentum coming out of the Christmas season, "and we expect it to continue throughout the year".

Going by sales in the opening months of the year, the games industry looks to be on track for another record-breaking year. Sales in February were up 34 per cent over the same month last year, according to NPD numbers posted by Kotaku, and sales in January and February combined are 12 per cent higher than in 2007.

Below are the US hardware and software sales figures for February, as determined by NPD Group:

Software

1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) - 296,200
2. Devil May Cry 4 (Xbox 360) - 295,200
3. Wii Play with Wii remote (Wii) - 289,700
4. Devil May Cry 4 (PlayStation 3) - 233,500
5. Guitar Hero III (Wii) - 222,900
6. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) - 205,600
7. Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360) - 203,600
8. Turok (Xbox 360) - 197,700
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PlayStation 2) - 183,800
10. Rock Band (Xbox 360) - 161,800

Hardware

1. DS - 587,600
2. Wii - 432,000
3. PlayStation 2 - 351,800
4. PlayStation 3 - 280,800
5. Xbox 360 - 254,600
6. PSP - 243,100

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo