Sony Playstation 3 is king (for now)

After less than stellar sales during the early part of its existence, a new price drop helped the PlayStation 3 become the top selling console in September. What does this mean? Maybe people are sick of Microsoft and waving motion controls around like a drunk uncle.

Benefiting from a significant price drop last month and a hardware redesign, Sony's PlayStation 3 took the top spot in the U.S. gaming console sales rankings for the first time since it was launched in November 2006. According to the latest figures from NPD, the Blu-ray equipped device sold 491,800 units in September, compared with 462,800 for the Nintendo Wii and 352,600 for Microsoft's Xbox 360.

No one managed to topple the Nintendo DS, however, which boasts an impressive 524,000 units sold for the month. The entire industry as a whole enjoyed a 1 percent year-on-year growth to $1.28 billion, breaking six months of straight decline. Of that amount, software was up 5 percent to $649.32 million, while hardware was down 6 percent to $472.28 million and accessory sales were up 2 percent to $157.33 million.

While the PS3 does boast better graphics than the Xbox 360 and definitely the Wii, for some reason it seems to have excluded two key demographics: the kid gamer and the casual gamer. I would guess that hard-core gamers eat this stuff up since it's the most powerful machine on earth (other than PCs) and has several franchises from Sony. However, things have always seemed a little more advanced and adult on the PlayStation. Kids are going to be more attracted to the fun Wii, and the off-and-on gamer is going to be more inclined to buy the cheaper and better franchised Xbox 360.

Serious, name one franchise specifically on the PS3 that has reached main, main stream conscious (NOTE: I'm not talking about being mentioned on your gamer message board, I'm talking about something your mom would recognize). Now do the same for the Xbox and Wii. Mario? Halo? Those have entered the big time and people are willing to hope in bed with those machines. Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are mainstream in the gaming world but probably not as popular as the other console's marquee franchises.

However it appears this price drop may have earned the PS3 some more fans.