Rock Band has a great month, and maybe PS3 too

I wouldn't be surprised if Playstation 3 is in the headline for most stories about the January vidgame  sales data from NPD, but to me the biggest surprise was "Rock Band."

While most of the top 10 games chart was the same as we saw in December, "Rock Band" rocketed from nowhere (at least not in the top 10) to take the no. 4 slot with its Xbox 360 version. Aided by a high price compares to typical games, and even "Guitar Hero III" with its controller, "Rock Band" across all three of its platforms was the no. 1 revenue generating game for the month at $30 million.

"Rock Band" even sold better on the Xbox 360 than "Guitar Hero III," by a razor thin margin of 184,000 compared to 183,000. Of course, "Guitar Hero III" for Wii did even better, though, selling 240,000.

On the hardware side, the shocker is that PS3 outsold 360 for the first time and almost beat Nintendo's Wii (exact sales figures below). As I noted in my story for tomorrow's Daily Variety, there were likely several contributing factors, including:

-More PS3's in stock after the holidays than the competing systems, both of which outsold it all of last year.

-Warner Bros' decision to switch to Blu-ray, essentially ending the format war and putting PS3 in an excellent position as an inexpensive, multi-use Blu-ray player.

-Good old fashioned momentum for the PS3 thanks to the price cut and a growing library of solid games like "Uncharted" and "Ratchet and Clank: Future."

Of course, it's still worth noting that only one PS3 game was in the top 10 and for total system spend on games, hardware and accessories, Xbox 360 remains in the lead (360: $297 million; Wii: $244 million; PS3: $219 million). Clearly, 360 still has the hearts of the hard core gamers with the most cash to burn.

Here's the data so you can make sense of it yourself:

January 2008 hardware sales

Wii: 274,000

Playstation 3: 269,000

DS: 251,000

PSP: 230,000

Xbox 360: 230,000

January 2008 game sales

Call of Duty 4, Xbox 360: 331,000

Wii Play, Wii: 298,000

Guitar Hero III, Wii: 240,000

Rock Band, Xbox 360: 184,000

Guitar Hero III, Xbox 360: 183,000

Super Mario Galaxy, Wii: 172,000

Burnout Paradise, Xbox 360, 144,000

Call of Duty 4, PS3: 140,000

Mario Party, DS: 139,000

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, DS: 133,000