Microsoft: We’re beating PS3 in Europe

[amirnetz]

Reasonable said:

Sony will likely hold to its YTD lead in "Others" because of it good momentum at the first 8 months of the year. However, things reversed dramatically in September, Microsoft pulled ahead in Europe and is not looking back. So expect the hard-core Sony fans to continue to dismiss this development and mention that Sony is still the YTD leader. But both them and the rest of us know that this is immaterial. What's important is the current consistant pace of sales and here the 360 is cleaning them out.

 

By your logic earlier in the year the only think important would have been PS3 outselling 360 in Others and how Sony wouldn't be looking back, etc.  I find it strange you can accept MS managing to reverse a trend but then declare emphatically that everything else is now immaterial.

Do you really think Sony won't respond in some way?  And MS counter respond?  You can't simply draw a line in the sand in Others and go 'that's it, game over'.  Sony is ahead YTD but MS has grabbed back the momentum for the moment.  It's very unlikely that this state of affairs will remain unchanged. 

The past is immaterial when the core conditions changes.  The past should serve us as a reference point only when it helps us to predict the future. If the core paramters have changed then the past performance stops being an indicator of future success and it is only good for nostalgia and fanboys bragging.

Sony will respond at some point. And Microsoft will make its own moves. And each of these steps may change the core parameters of the market and will force us to look fresh at the new dynamic in the market. The moves may or may not change the market behavior. Microsoft's price drop was successful agaist the PS3 but did nothing against the Wii. So it is not that any vendor move will automatically be successful.

It is game-over at this point, but it is certainly a consistant new market behavior until Sony is able to come up with a move that can shake the current dynamics and establish new ones.