Xbox 360 leads the way with sales and online play The Xbox 360 sees a strong growth in console sales during February 2010 according to figures released by NPD this month.

The rise sees the Xbox 360 knock the Wii off the top spot, the last time it managed to do that was back in September 2007 and the first time the Wii has dropped below it's other rivals since September 2009. Year on year sales were down however although February 2010 did see a small increase over the previous month.

The stats for the main 3 consoles were as follows:

February 2010 Hardware Sales

• Xbox 360 - 422,000


• Wii - 397,900


• PlayStation 3 - 360,100

January 2010 Hardware Sales

• Wii - 465,800


• Xbox 360 - 332,800


• PlayStation 3 - 276,900

In related news NPD also released figures showing that the average number of hours per week spent online gaming has grown by 10% since 2009. The average number of hours spent per week on online gaming has gone up from 7.3 hours per week in the 2009 study they conducted compared to 8.0 hours per week in the 2010 study with Xbox 360 users racking up more hours than the PC overall.

The PC is still the most used system for online gaming with 85% market share and the Xbox 360 maintains its leadership for the third year in a row as the top video game system used for online gaming with 48%.

Whether the Xbox 360 console continues to top the chart remains to be seen as prices for the entry level arcade model have seen an increase over the past couple of weeks as the Premium version of the console is phased out and replaced by the Elite which in turn is replaced by the new top of the range Xbox 360 Super Elite.