US stats deliver, the NPD Group, has given its judgement on February sales figures for consoles and handhelds in its home country this February.

One thing is for sure, Microsoft was right when he said that expected 'to trail' in February. For the second month this year it sees the 360 trailing both Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. Brilliant inventory tracking by Microsoft? Or simply saving all the hardware up for the April 29th GTA IV onslaught? Or both?

Then again, all is not brilliant in the world of latest-gen hardware, with Sony seeing the PS3 sales dragging behind PS2 once again. Still, the PS3 managed to sell 29,800 more units in February over January.

Nintendo is either now largely devoid of supply woes or fewer people want to buy the Wii. Nope, the fact that it's added 163,000 sales of the Wii to last month's 274,000 sales does indicate that people still want Wii.

Sales all round were up month-on-month with 631,900 units more passing from retail to happy gamers than in January.

Hardware Sales USA
Nintendo DS - 587,600
Nintendo Wii - 432,000
Sony PlayStation 2 - 351,800
Sony PlayStation 3 - 280,800
Microsoft Xbox 360 - 254,600
Sony PSP - 243,100
Total hardware: 2,149,900