“The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has actually outsold the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in its first week”, IW’s Robert Bowling posted on the company’s message boards. “Making it the most successful PC version.”

The quote was made in response to claims that the PC version of the game accounts for only 3 per cent of MW2’s total sales, Bowling adding “Essentially, all this percentage proves is that the console versions sold great, not that the PC version sold poorly”.

3% of overall sales [Infinity Ward]

Scratch that. There was a slight change. PSP sales jumped up, PlayStation 3 sales dropped down and the two platforms switched positions from the week prior.

With PSP games and PS3 games selling well, sometimes better than their Nintendo DS and Wii rivals, it’s not much of a surprise to see Sony’s current generation platforms reaping the benefits of a larger install base. With Final Fantasy XIII due to hit the PS3 in Japan in less than a month, expect those increases to continue.

This is Japan’s bestselling hardware for the week of November 9 to 15, courtesy of Media Create.

• PSP – 38,770
• PlayStation 3 – 38,498
• Nintendo DSi – 33,749
• Wii – 26,764
• PSP go – 6,427
• Nintendo DS Lite – 5,036
• Xbox 360 – 4,124
• PlayStation 2 – 2,031

The PSP game kicked its way to the top of the Media Create sales charts, pushing past Nintendo’s still strong Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, which are destined to cross the three million sold mark any day now. The PlayStation Portable’s software dominance gives the PlayStation brand more than just a first place showing. It helped games on Sony’s trio of platforms score 17 of the top 30 spots this week. (One PlayStation 2 title managed to chart.)

New PlayStation 3 debuts like Dragon Ball: Raging Blast and Need for Speed: Shift helped Sony’s ratio, but it was the PSP that scored the most spots, with 10 games for the portable platform showing this week. Not all of them showing well, mind you, but enough to secure a top 30 spot.

And look, there’s Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers, getting the usual Crystal Chronicles response…

01. J-League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! 6: Pride of J (PSP) – 85,000 / NEW
02. Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver (DS) – 63,000 / 2,980,000
03. Dragon Ball: Raging Blast (PS3) – 58,000 / NEW
04. Tomodachi Collection (DS) – 56,000 / 1,639,000
05. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 53,000 / 903,000
06. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 (PS3) – 49,000 / 267,000
07. Inazuma Eleven 2: Fire/Blizzard (DS) – 37,000 / 607,000
08. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers (Wii) – 35,000 / NEW
09. Mega Man Battle Network: Operating Shooting Star (DS) – 23,000 / NEW
10. Persona 3 Portable (PSP) – 17,000 / 158,0000

11. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Wii)
12. Bayonetta (PS3)
13. Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
14. Lunar: Harmony of Silver Star (PSP)
15. Hexyz Force (PSP)
16. Hikari no 4 Senshi: Final Fantasy Gaiden (DS)
17. Higarushi no Naku Koro ni: Jan (PSP)
18. Tekken 6 (PS3)
19. Tamagotchi no Narikiri Channeru (DS)
20. Need for Speed: Shift (PS3)
21. Battle Spirits: Kiseki no Hasha (PSP)
22. Infamous (PS3)
23. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (the Best) (PSP)
24. Sengoku Hime: Senran ni Mau Otometachi (PSP)
25. Dragon Quest IX (DS)
26. Dissidia Final Fantasy – Universal Tuning (PSP)
27. Summon Night X: Tears Crown (DS)
28. Dragon Ball: Raging Blast (Xbox 360)
29. Sengoku Hime: Senran ni Mau Otometachi (PS2)
30. Warship Gunner 2 Portable (PSP)

While we’ve touched briefly on the performance of two titles not making the top 10, let’s look at the other nine. Yes, nine, because DJ Hero’s sales were so dismal (it’s best-performing SKU being the 360 version, with 62,000 sold) that it couldn’t even make the top 20.

So, without further ado, here are October’s almost-there games.

11. Demon’s Souls (PS3, Atlus)
12. Brutal Legend (360, Electronic Arts)
13. FIFA Soccer 10 (PS3, Electronic Arts)
14. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS, Nintendo)
15. WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 (360, THQ)
16. Tekken 6 (PS3, Namco Bandai)
17. Borderlands (PS3, Take 2)
18. Madden NFL 10 (360, Electronic Arts)
19. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers Of Sky (DS, Nintendo)
20. Mario Kart Wii / Wheel (Wii, Nintendo)

Well played, Demon’s Souls! And well played FIFA (the 360 version was #10), showing that maybe, just maybe, Americans are coming around.

Music Games Aren’t Dead, Just Waiting to Be Reborn [Wired]

Take this one, for example. It’s been put together by The Business Insider, and charts the decline in video game sales since 2007. As it says, it’s based on a year-to-year percentage change, so a dip means the industry was down on where it was at the same point the year before.

CHART OF THE DAY: Video Game Industry Not So Recession Proof After All [TBI, via 1UP]

And, all things considered, they’re not bad. Since launching on September 22, ODST has sold just over three million units, having sold 1.5 of those in its first month on sale.

Sure, that’s nowhere near Halo 3 levels, but then ODST had nowhere near Halo 3’s levels of content or marketing.

Halo 3:ODST Continues Its Sales Dominance [IGN]

And doing so by a relatively wide margin, as the PS3 outsold the Nintendo DSi by more than 10,000 units, the console’s closest competitor. Less exciting for Sony executives is the PSPgo’s second week sales, mustering up just shy of 14,000.

The full Japanese hardware sales rundown, courtesy of Media Create is after this.

• PlayStation 3 – 48,925
• Nintendo DSi – 37,421
• PSP – 33,784
• Wii – 31,810
• PSP go – 13992
• Nintendo DS Lite – 5515
• Xbox 360 – 4679
• PlayStation 2 – 2066

Brutal Legend managed to move 215,000 copies when you combine the figures from PS3 and 360. For a game with a niche appeal, that’s not too bad. But for a game that had Jack Black popping up every five seconds to promote it… yeah, maybe EA were hoping for a little more.

It’s a veritable Modern Warfare 2 when you compare it to DJ Hero, however, which only sold 122,300 units. Across four platforms. Yes, it was only on sale for five days in October (still a long enough time to pick up decent numbers), but this was Activision’s first crack at their own “Hero” game. It had an expensive marketing campaign, and was backed by heavyweights like Daft Punk, Jay-Z and DJ Shadow.

Then again, maybe that was the problem. My distaste for the game has always been down to its scattershot approach to its soundtrack: a little hip-hop here, a little electronica there, some dance, all meeting over some ill-advised pop remixes… it’s a mess. Perhaps it would have been better served picking, say, hip-hop and just running with that, so it was a must-have for at least one market.

That or not being $US120. Or making its song downloads $US3. Those might have helped, too.

Wonder if it’ll do any better in November…

Anyway, here’s the platform breakdown for those interested, courtesy of GameSpot:

Brutal Legend (360) – 150,000 units
Brutal Legend (PS3) – 66,000 units
DJ Hero (360) – 62,000 units
DJ Hero (PS3) – 39,000 units
DJ Hero (Wii) – 19,000 units
DJ Hero (PS2) – 3300 units

Brutal Legend sells 216K, DJ Hero 123K [GameSpot]

The month was packed with new software, including Forza Motorsport 3, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and NBA 2K10 which put big numbers on the board. And while the PS3 and Wii secured software spots one and two, respectively, the Xbox 360’s showing as a platform resulted in six of the top 10 games sold in the US this October. That’s a lot of royalty payments going Microsoft’s way.

The top 10 games for the month of October according to NPD are…

01. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) – 537,000
02. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 441,000
03. Borderlands (Xbox 360) – 418,000
04. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 314,000
05. NBA 2K10 (Xbox 360) – 311,000
06. Halo 3 ODST (Xbox 360) – 271,000
07. NBA 2K10 (PS3) – 213,000
08. Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360) – 175,000
09. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS) – 169,000
10. FIFA Soccer 10 (Xbox 360) – 156,000

That’s just a portion of the $US572.73 million that US consumers spent on video game software last month, down 18 per cent from the same period last year.

NPD’s Anita Frazier notes that about half of Wii Fit Plus’ sales for the month were of the bundled variety, meaning that plenty of Wii owners are investing in Wii Balance Boards for the first time.

“The top game for the month across all platforms was NBA 2K10, at 575K units,” Frazier says of 2K Sports’ latest. “It was a great launch for the game, outselling last year’s NBA 2K9 by 60 per cent in its launch month. Sales on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms improved substantially over last year.”

Now for the bad news.

“The music/dance genre saw big declines this month compared to last year,” Frazier notes. “The genre generated $US53 million in sales as compared to $US137 million last year. Both Rock Band: Beatles, and Guitar Hero 5 have the potential to be good gifting items for the holidays, so we should expect to see an uptick in sales over the next two months.”

The Wii moved more than a half a million million units to consumers in the United States last month, according to the NPD Group. That’s up from the 462,800 it moved in September and more than enough to best its closest competitor, the Nintendo DS.

Sony’s September to October performance was less fortunate, dropping from 491,800 to 320,600. On the Microsoft side, things were less worse, with Xbox 360 sales dipping from 352,600 in September to 249,700 in October. Without the sales boosting power of Halo 3: ODST, that puts Microsoft in fourth place in last month’s ranking.

Here’s how October treated console makers Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, according to NPD, whose reporting period ran from 10/4 to 10/31, a four week span compared to September’s five week span.

• Wii – 506,900
• Nintendo DS – 457,600
• PlayStation 3 – 320,600
• Xbox 360 – 249,700
• PSP – 174,600
• PlayStation 2 – 117,800

US consumers spent $US380.74 million on video game hardware last month, down 23 per cent from October 2008. While that’s not good — not good at all — there is a faint silver lining, according to NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier.

“The video games industry suffered another decline this month as compared to last October,” Frazier points out, adding “This is the third best October on record, behind October 2007 and October 2008.”

Frazier points to the Wii and Xbox 360 as “decreasing the most compared to October 2008″.

And, putting reporting period windows into perspective, Frazier outlines the positives from October.

“Compared to last month, which was a five-week month as compared to four weeks this month, Wii, PSP and NDS sales increased on an average sales per week basis, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 declined,” she says.

“On a year-to-date basis, only the Xbox 360 and the NDS have realised unit sales increases over the same time frame last year,” Frazier said, find a bit more silver. “While overall portable hardware unit sales are down, dollar sales are up thanks to an increase in the average selling price of portable hardware generated by the higher price points of the new portable systems and bundles.”

Thanks to the NPD Group for this month’s info.