While the NPD results showed bad news for most of the videogame industry, at least one company is riding high. That company is Microsoft, and you can always be sure that with success comes some smug boasting from an MS executive. Paging Aaron Greenberg ...

"Our console sales for the first half of the year actually grew 20% from January to June versus the same six months last year," says Greenberg, who also reveals that Xbox Live paid downloads have increased by 73% over the past year. Of course, Aaron Greenberg wouldn't be Aaron Greenberg if he didn't take a swipe at Sony, and that's just what he did.

"I think for Sony, what in many ways kind of threw them off that strategy was what happened with the PS2 and the DVD player phenomenon," he surmises. "They kind of expected that to happen with the PS3 and the Blu-ray." He does concede, however, that Sony's decision to focus on its first-party lineup was "probably" the right decision. 

That's a bit more tame than Greenberg's usual trolling. Maybe he's found true love and just doesn't have it in him for fight anymore.