Can the PS3 win without NA?

[Dodece]

To the first question I see neither obtaining dominance this holiday season. When I say dominance I am thinking sales by a meaningful margin something like a fifty thousand unit margin. Nothing below that is truly significant.

To the second question thats a strong No. Sony cannot win the console war without North America. That particular market it just too vital, and while it has bought the most PS3 consoles it is also the market where Sony is in the greatest jeopardy. They hold less then fifteen percent of the North American next gen market. That is with the Christmas crutch. Without the fat holiday wallets pricing will once again become a major consideration.

North America 19.61mil 51%
Others 12.32mil 32%
Japan 6.11mil 16%

From the above statistics you can see that the majority of the next gen gaming market is the North American market comprising more then half of the hardware sales. To win Sony must either provide serious competition to Microsoft in North America or have Microsoft crash in Europe. Right now neither or which seems likely, and Japan is next to nothing in the scheme of things.

Further more and this is critical Sony despite the recent decent sales is still on the knifes edge the price of a mediocre year. They are very close to insignificance. Were Nintendo, and Microsoft to maintain higher sales after the holiday rush for just a couple more months. They could push Sony below ten percent market share. Once there you start to see plummeting support at worst, or even outright stigma. Both can permanently cripple a console.

Sony absolutely needs North America to win against Microsoft not only for sheer volume, but to maintain support and survive the long haul. They are terribly close to the numbers Microsoft is putting out in Japan only in the much larger market. Microsoft holds nine percent of the market in Japan. Sony is holding a mere fifteen percent in North America a couple more months of solid thumping could be disastrous.

Sony really needs to do better, and do better sooner. Once price becomes a factor again those sales are going to slide down again.