Microsoft has just announced a bumper year for Xbox 360 so that must mean it’s time for Sony to issue an equally ebullient statement. Yawn, here we go then…

"We've had a solid holiday season and have delivered consistent growth throughout this year,” Ian Jackson, VP of sales for Sony America, tells CNET. “Two thousand eight was a pivotal year for PlayStation with the best software line up in the industry, a dramatic expansion of PlayStation Network including the launches of the video delivery service and the beta of the PlayStation Home."

Bold words, for sure, even if the claim of “best software line up” might be pushing it just a teensy bit. But how pivotal was 2008, exactly? "Early internal data points to an increase of more than 130 percent of PS3 hardware sales for the holiday season - since Black Friday (US retail’s biggest sales day) - and we're also seeing a growth of nearly 40 percent in total PS3 hardware sales for the calendar year. We remain confident this momentum will continue into the new year," says Jackson.

But, as CNET is quick to point out, there’s a slightly grey cloud lurking within every silver lining and the PS3 was the only home console to go backwards in November 2008. As NPD figures have it US sales of the PS3 fell from 466,000 in 11/07 to 378,000 in 11/08 - a drop of 18.8%. At the same time 360 sales grew from 770,000 to 836,000 and the Wii lurched even more convincingly from 981,000 to 2.04 million.

According to Sony it was all because of "an abnormally strong month due to a price cut (with) the introduction of the 40GB PS3."