According to a Tuesday Nielsen/NetRatings report, traffic to the PlayStation Web site fell in February, while rivals Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii posted double-digit growth. Compared to last year"s February, visits to Playstation.com fell 8% to 1 million unique visitors, while traffic to Nintendo.com soared by 91% to 1.6 million visitors and Xbox.com traffic rose by 47% to 1.2 million visitors.
Nintendo has reported strong sales for its Wii console, a reflection that the company"s strategy of targeting average consumers instead of hardcore gamers is working. Sony, on the other hand, got off to a bad start with the PS3 after a component shortage delayed shipments. The company, however, appears to be back on track and says it expects to ship 6 million units by the end of the month. While the PlayStation packs far more computing power than the Wii, the cost of the machine is about twice as much, making it more of a device for hardcore gamers.