PlayStation 3 sales rise, but it’s still in last place

A price cut seems to have boosted sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3, but the floundering console is still trailing its rivals from Microsoft and Nintendo.

U.S. retailers sold 159,000 PlayStation 3s last month, compared to 98,500 in June. The increase came as Sony cut the price on the game machine in early July by $100 to about $500.

But despite the increased sales, the PlayStation 3 still found itself in last place among next generation consoles, as retailers sold 170,000 Xbox 360s last month and a healthy 425,000 Nintendo Wiis. Even Sony’s venerable PlayStation 2 outsold its younger sibling, with consumers snatching up 222,000 of the aging machines.

Overall, July was a good month for the game industry with total sales of hardware, software and accessories up 37 percent from the same month last year to $925.5 million. The only downside for the business was in the portable market, where hardware sales fell 1 percent to $95 million and software sales dropped 1.5 percent to $106.1 million.

Electronic Arts’ “NCAA Football 08” for the Xbox 360, Activision’s “Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s” and Nintendo’s “Wii Play” were the top three best selling games for the month. Those three companies dominated the game sales last month, with three versions of “NCAA Football,” three of “Guitar Hero” and three different Nintendo games ranked in the top 10.