Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Nintendo Co.'s Wii regained the lead in U.S. video-game console sales in October, fending off price cuts by Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. ahead of the holiday sales season.

U.S. retailers sold 519,000 Wii players, a gain of 36 percent from September, when the release of the video-game ``Halo 3'' lifted Microsoft's Xbox 360 to first place, NPD Group Inc., a Port Washington, New York-based researcher, said today in an e-mailed statement.

Wii's gain reflects increased production for the Christmas season, George Harrison, Nintendo's U.S. marketing chief, said in an interview. October sales increased even though Sony cut the PS3 price. Microsoft lowered Xbox prices in August. Stores sold every Wii shipped to the U.S. in October, with players staying on shelves for only a few days, he said.

``There remains a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for Wii,'' said Evan Wilson, an analyst for Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon. ``If Nintendo had shipped 600,000 to U.S. retailers, they would have posted that number.''

Stores sold 366,000 Xbox 360 players and 121,000 of Sony's PlayStation 3 consoles. Activision Inc.'s ``Guitar Hero III'' was the top-selling game at 1.17 million copies, NPD said.

Nintendo plans to maintain its holiday production rate of 1.8 million a month through the first quarter of 2008 to see if consumers will continue buying, Harrison said. The rate compares to about 1 million a month during last year's holidays, he said.

Production

The company has increased supply slowly because it is wary of creating a glut, Wilson said in an interview. He has a ``sector perform'' rating on Sony shares and doesn't follow Nintendo or Microsoft.

Nintendo also led in sales of handheld game players. Stores sold 458,000 units of the company's DS, compared with 286,000 units of Sony's PSP, NPD said.

Microsoft fell 17 cents to $33.76 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. U.S.-traded Sony shares lost 27 cents to $48.38 on the New York Stock Exchange and Kyoto-based Nintendo fell 700 yen to 63,300 yen in Osaka.

Tokyo-based Sony cut the PlayStation 3 price by $100 to $499 on Oct. 18 and introduced a $399 model on Nov. 2. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft dropped the price of the cheapest Xbox 360 to $280 from $300 in August. Wii sells for $249.

Price Cut

The price cut and new model helped Sony increase sales of all consoles including the older PlayStation 2 to 100,000 units in the week ended Nov. 11, spokeswoman Kimberly Otzman said in an e-mail.

Harrison said Wii sales during the same week exceeded that number by a ``double-digit percentage. He declined to provide a specific figure.

``We've weathered that pretty well,'' Harrison said. ``It should be a very good holiday season.''

The Xbox 360 outsold Wii, introduced last November, for the first time in September on surging demand for the software maker's ``Halo 3,'' made exclusively for Xbox. In October ``Halo 3'' sales totaled 433,800, NPD said.

Total U.S. sales of video games, hardware and accessories increased 73 percent to $1.1 billion in October, NPD said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite8@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 15, 2007 20:08 EST