damndl0ser said:
If you seriously think about it, Sony had a horrid year last year. The first 3+ months were supply constrained for M$ so that hurt them a lot in the sales department. If they had the supply thing worked out in early 08 I think M$ would have an additional 500k- 1M sales. So things could have been much worse for Sony.
As for Sony outselling M$ for the year, it is all but imppossible. Trouble in the economic sector for nearly everyone + major corporate downward spiral for Sony = Very ruff year ahead.
M$ has a greater chance of outselling the Wii this Christmas (not going to happen) than Sony beating the 360 for the year. |
Your fanboyism is showing.
Despite how you want look at it, Sony isn't doing nearly as bad now as Microsoft was doing this time last year. You can argue that it's because of supply contraints, but that doesn't change the fact that 360 sales didn't improve one bit until they issued a price drop in September. If last year taught Sony and Microsoft fanboys anything, it's that Q4 makes all the difference. You can be outsold all year long by an average of 80k units a week, but if you can significantly outsell your competetor during the key Christmas season, then it dosn't matter how bad you do during the first 3/4ths of the year.
That being said, Sony's Christmas lineup of games looks infinitely better than the 360's currently does from a hardware selling perspective. Final Fantasy XIII in Japan, Gran Turismo 5 in Europe and God of War III in America (All of which are currently, officially stated to be released during this time) will sell more consoles in their specific regions than any game getting released on 360. Despite what Sony or Microsoft may want us to think, the truth is that we already know almost every single upcoming exclusive game for either system that will sell more than 500k this year.
As far as price cuts are concerned, if you think that Sony won't be able to issue one by the end of the year you're fooling yourself. The PS3 is already practically breaking even on every system sold and they most likely are breaking even on premium bundles. Over the past two years, Sony has managed to reduce the manufacturing cost of the PS3 by roughly $400 according to iSuppli's estimates in 2006 and 2008. With the upcoming 45nm hardware revision coming in Spring, the general and constant lowering prices for blu-ray and other internal parts, and Sony's simple need to cut costs everywhere they possibly can, I wouldn't be surprised in Sony were able to manufacture PS3s for roughly $335 by this October and possibly even less. At that point, it's a no brainer for Sony to drop the price by $100 because if they manage to sell one or two first party games with every system sold, they'll have broken even which shouldn't be difficult with huge and moderate new releases such as God of War III, Gran Turismo 5, M.A.G, Uncharted 2, Ratchet & Clank 2, Heavy Rain and EyePet.
We also need to take Microsoft's potential price cuts into the equation. However, unless Microsoft is willing to sell the system at a permanant loss for the rest of the generation, then they really can't afford to drop the price more than $50 this year unless they release an XboxSlim of some sort.
It's not hard to see the PS3 beating the 360 this year at all. I'd even go as far to say it's just as hard to see the 360 beating PS3 if Sony issues a $100 price cut during Q4.
