And the winner of the console wars is ...

Kristin Kalning Games editor • E-mail

Much ink has been spilled over the so-called “console wars” between the new Nintendo Wii, the PlayStation 3 and the year-old Xbox 360. So now that 2006 is over and the numbers have been tallied, who won the home-console slugfest?

The PlayStation 2.

That’s right. The PlayStation 2 outsold all next-gen consoles by a fairly wide margin. Sony moved 1.4 million of the six year-old systems in the month of December, according to year-end sales data from the N.Y.-based NPD Group.

The PlayStation 3 sold a respectable 490,700 units in the U.S. in December, and 687,300 since its November launch. And Nintendo moved 604,200 Wiis in December, and 1.1 million since its November release. But still — the PS2 continues to dominate the console scene.

A key factor? Well, price for one. At $129 brand-new, the PS2 is roughly one-fifth the price of its tricked-out younger sibling.

“The price point means it’s easy for those who are less actively involved in gaming to pick one up,” says NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “Or, pick it up as a second system.”

Another issue? Games. And that’s a big one: The PlayStation 3 shipped with just 12 titles when it launched on Nov. 17. It added a few more for the holiday season, but the numbers pale in comparison to the 1,319 games out there for the PS2 in North America.

OK. Cheap and lots of games. Did we mention that the thing was actually on store shelves, unlike the Wii and PlayStation 3? That was a big factor in the legacy system’s success this year, too.

It’s definitely a chicken-and-egg situation for new consoles, though: Buyers aren’t going to pick up a new system — particularly not one with a base-model price of $500 — unless there are games to play. But developers are leery of putting millions behind game-development for a system that doesn’t move lots of units.

“There’s more risk in newer platforms,” says Frazier. “If you publish for the PS2, you’ve got a nice base.”

Brian Lam, from Red Octane, the company that publishes the “Guitar Hero” series, echoes that sentiment.

“We’ll be on the next-generation systems — it’s a natural progression,” he says. “But you need to go where your fans are.”

Now, lest you think the “console wars” were a total bust, consider this: Sony and Nintendo would have undoubtedly sold far more systems if not for manufacturing shortages.

It’s those shortages that weigh heavily on the minds of game developers. Even though teams salivate at the thought of creating games for the latest and greatest hardware, it’s not always a good business decision.

“With [game] budgets in excess of $18 million, if you don’t have enough hardware in the market, you’re not going to make money in software,” says Capcom’s Chris Kramer. “It’s like making tires for cars that don’t exist yet.”

From a bean counter’s perspective, the PS2 is a slam-dunk. It boasts a monster installed base: 32 million in the U.S. alone, and an estimated 111 million worldwide. Sell to just 1 percent of that audience, and you’ve moved over a million games. That’s a hit from anyone’s perspective.

But it isn’t only the third-party developers that keep going back to the PlayStation 2 well:  The money generated by the cash-cow enabled Sony to plow resources into the creation of the PS3 — and numbers like the ones in December will help float the newer system for a good long while.

“We’ve got a full plate of games through the end of the year for the PS2,” says Sony’s PR chief Dave Karakker. “There’s still a lot of life left in this console.”

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