PS3 heads console sales chart

The PlayStation 3 topped console sales this year, despite its sales numbers declining for the first time since it launched in 2006.

Sony’s flagship console sold 9,808,394, a 17.3 per cent decrease on last year’s total according to new data from VGChartz.

Sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 were down 24.9 per cent on last year’s figure; from 11,315,392 to a total of 8,494,136.

Wii sales took the biggest hit of the three, dropping 55 per cent from 2011’s total of 9,541,368 to 4,294,898.

Lifetime sales for the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 sit at 97,958,421, 72,263,580, and 70,316,129 respectively.

In the handheld market, Nintendo’s 3DS trounced its rivals, selling 11,095,859 units – 10 per cent more than last year.

The PlayStation Vita took a distant second place with 3,257,583 units sold.

DS sales dropped sharply from nearly eight million in 2011 to 2,899,397.

To date, Nintendo has sold 153 million units of the DS worldwide, and Sony has managed to move 75 million of the PSP.

- Gameplanet