Sony's Playstation 3 managed to maintain its lead over Microsoft's Xbox 360 for the second month in a row with 281,000 units sold. Meanwhile, Nintendo Wii remains on top of the list as the best selling console in February, with 432,000 units.

Xbox was a bit behind, with 255,000 units sold, but Microsoft found an awkward explanation for that: first of all, the Xbox sells more units worldwide than PS3, which lead them to the conclusion that these figures don’t say much about the overall preferences of gamers, and secondly, Microsoft failed to meet sales expectations due to inventory shortages, after an incredible high demand during holiday season.

However, there are many skeptics which question these alleged shortages. Most analysts have pointed out that having supply problems for so long probably indicates there is a problem with the parts supply or manufacturing of the consoles.

Overall, sales of video game hardware and software in the United States hit $1.33 billion in February, up 34 percent from a year earlier.

"While hardware inventory issues at retail may still be lingering post-holiday, the fact that all now-gen systems generated significant year-over-year hardware sales increases indicates the situation is coming into balance faster than it did last year," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

The sales figures for gaming consoles were as follows, per NPD:

588,000 – Nintendo DS
432,000 – Nintendo Wii
352,000 – PlayStation 2
281,000 – PlayStation 3
255,000 – Xbox 360
243,000 – PlayStation Portable