U.S. sales of Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 (PS3) more than doubled in the weeks following a price cut and the launch of a lower-priced version, the company said on Friday, in a sign of changing fortunes for the game console.

Sony said it sold about 75,000 PS3 consoles in the week of October 29 in the United States, and more than 100,000 in the following week, compared with weekly sales of 30,000 to 40,000 before.

Sony cut the U.S. price of its PS3 with an 80-gigabyte hard disk drive by 17 percent to $499 in mid-October. It started selling a new model with a 40-GB hard drive on November 2 for $399 in an effort to ignite demand ahead of the crucial holiday season.

Sony, locked in battle with Microsoft Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd in the global videogame market, suffered a slow start for the PS3 after its launch a year ago because of high prices and a scarcity of strong game titles.

Nintendo sold 519,000 units of the Wii in the United States in October, while Microsoft sold 366,000 Xbox 360 consoles and Sony sold 121,000 of its PS3 machines, data from market research firm NPD showed on Thursday.

Sony