Will the PS3 reach the 30M this year?

[amirnetz]

Max King of the Wild said:
Amirnetz - 8 million without price cut? you serious? so you think it would do worse than '06-'07 without 5 months on other sales no games and 100 dollars more?

The ps3 sold 2.33 million units after black friday with Jaans mediocre sales. I can assure you Japan wont be so slow this year even at the same price...

You only expect 5.67 units in 11months? laughable

Had I told you that the PS3 will have a 20%+ sales decline YoY for the 2008 holiday season you would have called it "crazy, outlandish, laughable". Still this is exactly what happened (BTW, I did call out the decline in early Nov, against TheSource predictions).

The PS3 is not doing well since the 360 price cut. It is consistently showing a strong YoY decline. It had a role revesal in Europe with the 360 and was trailing in Americas 2:1 for the last quarter. I don't see anything that will reverse the trend except for a price cut, which will likely not happen. The prolonged sales lead of the 360 will continue the erosion of the Playstation brand name which is already the whipping boy of choice in the media.

The PS3 2009 games lineup is good, but not significantly better than the 2008 lineup. MGS4, LBP, R2 were all supposed to be the system sellers for 2008 but could not withstand the pricing assult of the 360. The 360 without much of special exclusives killed the PS3 holiday season on price alone. As long as the PS3 cannot close the pricing gap with the 360 it will stuggle to turn it around.

Japan is not a factor. In H2 2008 it had about 5% of the HD global market share. Once the Japan holiday frenzy sunsides it will revert to its old stale dynamics. Even a significant growth will not change much the picture when the basis is that 5%.