Building off of his essay where he asked 'who's winning the battle for the hardcore?', Chris Bateman has posted an essay on 'what makes fanboys tick?'. His answer? Much like fanatics on any side of sports rivalry, political divides, or religious divides, it's cognitive dissonance at work. As Bateman explains, "When we come across situations that radically contradict our beliefs, we are filled with an uncomfortable feeling: to lessen this unpleasant experience (which is termed cognitive dissonance) we modify our beliefs in a way that will lessen the cognitive dissonance." What does this have to do with console wars (and warring factions?):

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Why is this man smirking? His EA Sports division sold over 2.3 million copies of Madden NFL 09 to U.S. gamers last month, putting a serious hurting on the competition and lining up with his "prediction". Madden performed best on the Xbox 360, with over a million copies sold for that platform alone. The PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 versions sold over a million combined, so we doubt Peter Moore will be playing favourites.

While Madden intercepted the top three spots in August's NPD software sales chart, Nintendo nabbed the next three, with Wii Fit, Mario Kart and Wii Play continuing to show well.

But what about August's other attention grabbing debut, Too Human? See for yourself.

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Nintendo was in no danger of giving up the American console crown with its performance in August, selling just shy of another million Wiis and Nintendo DSs. More Nintendo hardware was sold to U.S. consumers than on all other platforms combined.

Hardware sales were mostly down — save for the PSP — with the PlayStation 3 seeing its three month streak of dominance over the Xbox 360 broken. Microsoft's recent price cuts on the 360 should go a long way to helping it next month as well. But we're getting ahead of ourselves...

Hit the jump for of Console War's August casualty count.

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Back in July, Jane Wells of CNBC declared the PlayStation 3 the winner of the console wars based on her son's reaction to Sony's E3 press conference. Following Sony's showing, the young lad picked up his Xbox 360 and all of his games and marched down to the local game store to trade it all in for a PlayStation 3. Now Wells posted an update on her son's video gaming habits, suggesting that perhaps the trade-in was a bit premature.

My son still owns his PS3. I asked him if he likes it. Yes. I asked him if he regrets trading in his Xbox 360. Yes to that, too. Why? He says that while he enjoys the quality of game play on the PS3, especially the graphics (and no discs have been scratched yet), he misses all his friends on Xbox Live. I've noticed that he's not playing the PS3 very much, and, in fact, he's reactivated his old "World of Warcraft" account...

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You might think that a significant price cut on the Xbox 360 front — giving Microsoft a sub $US 200 option in the U.S. — would have Sony Computer Entertainment employees in a panic, seeking the highest ledge from which to jump. Faced with an Xbox 360 that's cheaper than the Wii would normally drive one to the sweet embrace of Death. Not Sony, though! They're surprisingly powering through.

"We're quite confident our holiday sales will be good", Sony spokestypes tell Gamasutra. Touting Blu-ray playback and "the broadest and deepest software lineup in the industry", the corporate communications team at SCEA questions the long-term sustainability of the cuts.

What we're curious about is if anyone out there in Kotakuland has been holding out this long on the "next gen" purchase, opting to "jump in" and giving up on that PlayStation 3 purchase because of the price adjustment.

Analysis: Pachter Suggests, Sony Rebuts On Xbox 360 Price Cuts [Gamasutra]

The Wii is set to break console sales records in 2008, says analyst group DFC Intelligence - but the PlayStation 3 will beat the Wii's software sales by 2012.

Worldwide console sales can pass the $US 180 million benchmark by 2011 even in an economic slowdown, said the analyst group, since high gas prices encourage people to entertain themselves at home. While the report sees Wii as the likely overall install base leader, it is critical of Microsoft, stating that "for the 80 percent-plus of game consumers that do not play FPS games, the Xbox 360 is not the system of choice."

The sales performance of the PlayStation 3 has been less than stellar, but Sony has survived. The Xbox 360 was unable to take advantage of Sony's struggles to build the type of large lead needed to maintain a long-term advantage. The PS3 survived the onslaught of AAA Xbox 360 titles that hit the market from late 2006 through 2007.

Halo 3 had great sales, but it did very little to enhance the Xbox 360's overall position in the marketplace.

Full report and more stats than you can shake a Wii remote at:

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Shane Kim is ready to call the console war. Just as soon as someone sells another 90 million consoles, that is. In a recent interview with Wired's Game|Life, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Game Studios says that it's too early to declare a winner, despite colleague Don Mattrick chirping up recently to point out console sales precedents that say otherwise.

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Nintendo had an amazing April, pushing over 700,000 Wiis in the United States. That's a massive difference from its "current gen high definition console" competition, as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were neck and neck, only a thousand units difference between the two. If you were expecting a big boost from Grand Theft Auto IV's release, you're going to leave disappointed. Maybe next month. Nintendo's other platform, the DS continued to impress, more than doubling sales of the PSP.

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Microsoft totally won the race to 10 million in the U.S. That's for damn sure. But worldwide? They're not exactly the leader in the "current-generation console" race, at least not if you include the Wii as a "current-generation console." They may have an impressive Xbox Live user base, but 19 million Xbox 360s sold does not a current gen leader make.

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With a reported 9.9 million Xbox 360s sold through in the United States as of the end of March, something catastrophic would have had to happen to prevent Microsoft from reaching the 10 million mark first. Fortunately for the gang in Redmond, the company has avoided certain doom, announcing that it has reached the corporately coveted figure, beating NPD estimates by a day.

Don Mattrick, the *deep breath* Senior Vice President of the Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division, said in a statement that "History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle." Microsoft also points out that it leads worldwide, with a 19 million strong install base and 12 million Xbox Live users.

Impressive numbers? Absolutely. Expect to hear "But we got there fastest, not first!" and/or "Not my problem!" any second now.

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