157w ago - A few days back we reported on both PS3 and PSP sales data, and today Sony has revealed that it has sold one million PS2 gaming consoles in 2010 thus far.

In addition to being crowned as the best selling gaming console of all time, it appears as though the PlayStation 2 still have some life left in it indeed.

The PlayStation 2 has officially broke into its first 1,000,000 units for 2010!

To quote: "This feat was accomplished weeks before we reached the halfway point in the year, meaning the PS2 has potential to sell around 3,000,000 to 3,500,000 units by the end of the year due to the holiday season.

Analysts have predicted that the PS2 will soon reach a ground-breaking 150,000,000 total units.

This is just under 50,000,000 more units than its predecessor, the PlayStation (PSOne) and a goal that Kaz Hirai (President & CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment) set for the PlayStation 3 a few years ago."

162w ago - While reading a story on CNN about rare video games, Tanner Sandlin of Austin, Texas, recognized one of the games - Air Raid for the Atari 2600. He found the thirteenth known copy of the game in his garage and put it on eBay.

It sold last Sunday for $31,600, the second-highest price ever paid for a video game.

Sandlin bought the game when he was 11 or 12 years old at a store called Tuesday Morning in Arlington, Texas. The store bought overstocked or undersold goods from other retailers and sold the items at a discount.

To quote: "Sandlin's eBay auction ended on April 10, 2010 at about 10:15 p.m. EST. With only 5 minutes to go, the highest bid was $14,600. It sat at this price until the very last few seconds, when it jumped to $17,528, and then made a giant leap to $31,500. The final bid was $31,600.

This sets a new record price for the game, blowing away the previous record of $3,000. That also makes it the second-highest price ever paid for a video game cartridge, just behind the $43,300 paid for a factory-sealed copy of Stadium Events for the Nintendo back in February."

179w ago - Today Yahoo reports that Final Fantasy XIII has sold over 1 million PS3 copies on launch day in Japan, and PS3 Dev rickylyh confirmed it weighs in at 37.6GB in size on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc with a 1.6GB system cache in dev_hdd1 used to aid in loading.

This figure doesn't include the system bundles, however, but Square Enix managed to ship 1.8 million copies total (including bundles) to retail stores.

Unfortunately, unless you are looking to import the much-anticipated RPG, you'll have to wait until March of next year for it to arrive in other regions.

For those curious, Final Fantasy XIII will be released in the US and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on March 9, 2010.

181w ago - Sony's PlayStation 3 Slim entertainment system seems to be picking up the pace this holiday season, as VentureBeat.com (linked above) reports that 440,000 PS3 consoles were sold during Thanksgiving Week this year.

It appears Sony's Blu-ray Movie, PS3 Slim Bundle and HD Entertainment promotional campaigns are paying off indeed.

To quote from SCEA's Sr. Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media Patrick Seybold:

"The 2009 holiday season got off to an amazing start for PlayStation, with all key retailers showing a significant increase for PS3, PSP and key holiday titles over Black Friday and the holiday weekend.

PlayStation 3 demand was at an all time high with the system selling more than 440,000 units for the week ending 11/29/09."

215w ago - The alleged practice of GameStop lending new copies of games to employees at their stores and then later selling those games as new, unused copies, may be a violation of federal law.

GameStop's "check-out" policy, confirmed to Kotaku by a number of the chain's managers and employees, could fall under scrutiny of the Federal Trade Commission.

Reached for comment this afternoon, GameStop officials declined to comment.

To quote: "We do not comment on corporate policies that are competitive in nature," said Chris Olivera, vice president of corporate communications. "As your questions relate to company training, operations and discounting practices, I would not be able to provide feedback."

Kotaku contacted the FTC earlier today to determine if the practice, which sells games already played by employees at the new price, not the used price--used titles are typically priced about $5 cheaper than brand new versions--would be considered deceptive advertising or marketing. The FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection is mandated to protect consumers against unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce. Violations of FTC restrictions are a violation of federal law, according to the commission.

"The Federal Trade Commission protects consumers from unfair or deceptive...