Despite mounting job losses and under-water mortgages, Americans kept buying video games last month. Total spending on the category was $1.47 billion in February, up 10 percent from a year earlier, according to data from NPD Group this afternoon.

After three straight months of declining video game console sales, Sony is hoping to start 2009 with a bang as one of the most-anticipated titles for the PlayStation 3 hits stores Feb. 27. With "Killzone 2," the company hopes to showcase the power of its game console and take some momentum away from Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Microsoft has closed the books on what it's calling the biggest sales year in the history of its game console business. The company has sold 28 million Xbox 360 consoles globally and now counts more than 17 million members to its Xbox Live service, which has become a highlight of the business.

The Wall Street Journal's report today on the woes in Sony's gaming business is likely bringing smiles to faces in Redmond, where rivals Microsoft and Nintendo of America are based.

Microsoft's blockbuster first-party title for the holidays, "Gears of War 2," was the best-selling game last month, helping the company's Xbox 360 business turn in its best November yet. Microsoft moved 836,000 consoles in the U.S. compared with Sony, which sold 378,000 PlayStation 3s. But the big winner, according to NPD Group data released this afternoon, was Nintendo and its 2.04 million Wiis sold.

A hardware industry news and reviews site reported today that Microsoft is readying an external Blu-ray disc player for the Xbox 360. X-bit Laboratories, citing unnamed "market sources," reported that "Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp., a joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Toshiba Corp., has been contracted to manufacture external Blu-ray disc drives for Microsoft Xbox 360 game console."

(Update, 8:53 p.m.: A Microsoft statement shuts the door on this pretty hard. "As we've said before, Microsoft has no plans to introduce an Xbox 360 Blu-ray add-on.")

The best-selling video game in August, according to The NPD Group, was Madden NFL '09. Nearly 2.2 million units were sold in the U.S. After reading a great essay on the game's namesake, John Madden, I'm wondering how many were purchased by aspiring (or actual) NFL defensive coordinators.

Microsoft is co-producing a series of digital short films for distribution over the Xbox Live in another sign that online gaming networks are becoming more like all-in-one digital content distribution channels. Meanwhile, Sony is eyeing its own exclusive video offerings for distribution over the PlayStation Network, possibly in partnership with the company's formidable movie and television studios.

Updated, 4:03 p.m.: New comments from Microsoft after the jump.

NPD Group just released data confirming what Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime predicted in February. His company's Wii console sold 666,700 units in the U.S. in June, bringing its total install base to 10.9 million, taking the lead from Microsoft's Xbox 360.

LOS ANGELES -- Sony's press conference, hot on the heels of Nintendo's and a long, smoggy cab ride away, is rolling.

Jack Tretton, top dog at Sony in the U.S., started with some history. Fifteen years ago this week, executives at Sony gave the green light to the original PlayStation. The company was ahead of the technology curve then, introducing gamers to CDs, Tretton said. It's successor, PlayStation 2, was built with a 10-year plan in mind, and has now sold some 140 million units.

Too often, we focus on the video game (and Internet search) competition in the U.S., to the exclusion of the rest of the world. But on the games front, the battle for Europe during the current console generation is more interesting and perhaps more up for grabs than in the U.S.

And if Microsoft Xbox boss Don Mattrick wants to back up the claim he made today -- that "Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PlayStation 3" -- he'll have to win in Europe.

IGA Worldwide, a competitor of the Massive in-game advertising unit of Microsoft, announced a deal with Sony yesterday to sell in-game advertising on PlayStation 3 in Europe and North America. The move comes a day after Microsoft touted the success of its in-game advertising network on the Xbox 360, and also illustrates the different approaches the two console makers are taking to the business.

I assume NPD will be out with its monthly U.S. game industry figures later this afternoon. For now, Nintendo has chimed in early with an e-mail crowing about its sales in March: More than 720,000 Wiis sold, "representing the highest monthly sales total outside of" November and December, the holiday sales period.

Updated with the full NPD report after the jump.

For the second month in a row, Sony's PlayStation 3 outsold Microsoft's Xbox 360, according to U.S. sales data for February from The NPD Group.

As the two higher-end consoles duke it out, Nintendo's Wii, which is in the midst of several sought-after game and accessory launches this spring, continued to run away with the market.