By Cornelius Wilson on 01/11/08 at 11:12 AM

Sony Corp., the world's largest maker of video-game machines, said it sold 1.2 million PlayStation 3 consoles in the U.S. during the year-end shopping season, boosting the adoption of its next-generation Blu-ray DVD format.

The figure, for sales from Nov. 23 to Dec. 31, is more than double the 466,000 PlayStation 3s Sony sold in the U.S. in November, according to data from researcher NPD.

``PlayStation 3 sales strongly contributed to the spread of Blu-ray,'' Tokyo-based Sony, which includes a Blu-ray player in the PlayStation 3 console, said in a statement today.

The comment comes after Warner Bros. Entertainment said last week it will release movies solely based on Blu-ray, a move that may favor Sony in its battle against Toshiba Corp.'s HD DVD format. Still, increased sales of the game player failed to help Sony narrow the gap with Nintendo Co.'s Wii console, which outsold the PlayStation 3 by three to one in Japan in 2007.

Nintendo sold 3.63 million Wii units in the country last year, compared with Sony's 1.21 million PlayStation 3s, Tokyo- based Enterbrain said today by fax. Microsoft Corp. sold 257,841 units of its Xbox 360 machine, the researcher said.

Including the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable consoles, Sony said it sold 3.9 million machines in the U.S., the largest video-game market, from Nov. 23 to Dec. 31.

Separately, Sony said in a statement today that owners of its newest PlayStation Portable model, introduced in September, can use the Skype Internet telephone service on the players starting later this month.

Sony shares climbed 0.7 percent to 5,830 yen at the close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 1.3 percent, while Toshiba dropped 2.3 percent.


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