Look, I don't want to be negative, but this is pretty unprecedented. I can't think of any successful platform that saw sales decrease from Year 2 to Year 3 during the holidays, and then went on to see a strong rebound afterwards. PS3 should be gaining momentum and hitting its stride right now; the fact that sales were down 20% for November 2008 compared to November 07 (in America) is pretty disastrous. I looked at Japan, and sales are way down there as well year on year, although pretty much everything is down for 2008 in Japan.
If PS3 sales are falling year on year in 2 out of the 3 major markets... well, I can't see this ending well for Sony. I don't think they can siphon even more money away from the other divisions in order to save the PS3. How many billions of dollars is the PS3 supposed to get before it stands on its own feet? Once the mindshare of a product starts to slip, it's almost impossible to recover.
PS3 might turn out OK in Europe, but I think it's finished in America. I don't think it will ever capture more than 15-20% of the market here.
End of 2008 totals: Wii 42m, 360 24m, PS3 18.5m (made Jan. 4, 2008)
