PS3 will overtake XBox 360 by December 2009 in worldwide console sales.

[MikeB]

NJ5 said:

MikeB said:
@ NJ5

If the console sold according to expectations, why did Sony lower the price from 600 € to 400 € before the PS3 even saw its first holiday in Europe?

The 40 GB PS3 provided fewer features than the original model. It does not make much sense to charge the same amount of money. (no card readers, smaller harddrive, no PS2 compatibility [no PS2 GPU included], etc).

And the PS3 sold slower than anticipated for Japan and North America, which also got these new models. The PS3 performed well in Europe already.

But certainly you don't think that Sony was planning that all along (along with the huge price cut 6 months after launch)?

Of course the PS2 CPU and GPU had to go eventually. It's all about simplifying the motherboard design (cheaper, less power hungry, less cooling required, etc), resulting into cost reductions and being able to pave the way towards a slimline model eventually.

Sadly designing a software emulator takes much time and effort, else they would have never included those chips on the motherboard.