US January sales figures show that console sales were down by 76 percent on average, compared to the previous month. Although such figures are to be expected, as holiday season traditionally rakes in the most serious dough, the „lows“ might be a bit steep this time around.

The Wii and DS sales fell from 1.47 and 2.5 million to 679K and 511K respectively, whereas Xbox 360 sales fell from 1.1 million to 309K. The PS3 sold 203K, down from 523K in December.

On a lighter note, Microsoft seems pleased with the NPD figures, as the company singled out January '09 as the „single biggest month ever for Xbox LIVE“. The reason for this of course wasn't the slumping sales but rather that five Xbox 360 games made it to top ten for January and that 360 hardware sales were up by 33 percent compared to January 2008.

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