Ah, Sony, the kings of the percentage. The masters of momentum. You can weave year-to-date and year-over-year sales data into beautiful corporate prose, a captivating narrative dance of figures that makes our heads swim. You may get some flack for your unexciting PlayStation 3 sales, but when you talk about the success of the PlayStation family, we remember why we like you.

Sony counters a million Madden 09s on the Xbox 360 with a 1.1 million figure across the entire PlayStation brand — and they're nice enough to not even count the Madden NFL 09 PSP Entertainment Pack. That would just be rubbing it in.

This month's best percentage manipulation? A 38% higher attach rate for Soulcalibur IV on the PS3. And they even spell the name of the game right! This is veteran stuff.

CEO Jack Tretton caps it off nicely, saying that Sony's August performance "validates that consumers are indeed recognizing the long-term value that PS3 offers as both a gaming and home entertainment device." Couldn't have said it better if we had a dozen corporate communications staffers on our side.

PS3 Posts Strong Sales; PS3 Software Sales Up 92 Percent Year-Over-Year

Total PlayStation Hardware Unit Sales Top 582,533

PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3?) continued to generate impressive sales in August 2008, with 185,353 hardware units sold. From January to August 2008, more than 2 million PS3s have been sold in the U.S., representing a year-to-date hardware sales growth of more than 92%. Software sales were also strong for PS3, with 1.6 million units sold, representing a year-over-year growth of 92%.

* Electronic Arts Sports? Madden NFL 09 proved to be a hot seller on PlayStation platforms in August, with more than 1.1 million copies purchased by PlayStation customers, not including the Madden NFL 09 ® (PlayStation® Portable) Entertainment Pack. 643,000 units of the popular sports title were sold for PS3 alone, a 33% higher attach rate than Xbox 360 and representing an increase of 90% year-over-year when compared to Madden NFL 08 sales for PS3 in August 2007.
* Following its launch on July 29, more than 263K copies of the weapon-based fighting game Soulcalibur IV were sold for PS3 in July and August, a 38% higher attach rate than Xbox 360.
* PLAYSTATION®Network continued to be a popular destination for new and original forms of entertainment, including exclusive content such as the full game of The Last Guy and the Warhawk expansion pack, as well as TV shows like Xam?d: Lost Memories.

Fueled by enthusiasm for the Madden NFL 09 PSP Entertainment Pack, 253,012 PSP hardware units were sold. This represents a year-over-year growth of 67%.
PlayStation®2 (PS2) hardware unit sales were again solid in August, with 144,096 hardware units sold. Since launch, more than 42.7 million PS2s have been sold in the U.S. as of August 2008.

Power of the PlayStation Portfolio

The PlayStation brand generated strong sales across all three platforms, earning $365 million in August.

* Year-to-date (Jan-Aug), the PlayStation brand has generated almost $3.7 billion in revenue, representing an increase of 21% year-over-year.
* PlayStation total hardware revenue was $147.3 million in August, representing a year-to-date growth of 42%.
* PlayStation total software revenue in August was $178 million, representing a year-to-date growth of 25%.

CEO Perspective

"We had yet another strong month for PlayStation in August, which validates that consumers are indeed recognizing the long-term value that PS3 offers as both a gaming and home entertainment device. We also began shipping the new 80GB PS3 model in late August to address any short term inventory transitions from the 40GB to 80GB model. We're looking forward to a solid holiday season and are excited to offer a string of unmatched content to consumers in the coming months with LittleBigPlanet, SOCOM: Confrontation, Resistance 2, and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift."

- Jack Tretton, president and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment America