Six years after its initial release, consumer demand for the PlayStation 2 remains strong and it continues to be the most popular console on the market, outselling new generation hardware. May NPD data showed that PlayStation 2 sold close to 232K units compared to Microsoft's Xbox 360 which sold 221K units and Nintendo's GameCube which sold more than 33K units.
On the portable gaming front, the PSP system sold close to 160K units in May, making it the top-selling portable platform. Nintendo's Game Boy Advance ranked second selling 152K units, while the Nintendo DS was third with 146K units. In the period since its record-setting launch in March 2005, the PSP system has outsold all other next-generation handhelds in North America, with more than 4.7 million units sold. The PSP system's unparalleled gaming experience and strong first-party and third-party content continue to drive consumer demand in the region.
NPD data also showed that PlayStation 2 led May sales on the software front, selling more than 3.5 million units, while software for Microsoft's Xbox sold close to 1.2 million units and software for Nintendo's GameCube sold close to 1.0 million units. For May 2006, PlayStation 2 sold more than four times the amount of software sold for the Xbox 360 which sold just under
853K units.