Probably.

sony are really fuckin up, i knew there was shortages all over america, went to a few stores here in the uk and no ps3's? whats going on?

We are already in the second week of March and FFXIII is out tomorrow. Whatever Sony is planning they better move fast.

More likely imo (due to pricepoints and exchange rates) they're just taking the largest loss per unit in America, and have since been more "stingy" with supply allocation until volumes decrease costs sufficiently.  Are Japan and Europe seeing similar mass shortages?

I'd say it's probably the same deal with Nintendo and Wii, only replace "largest loss" with "smallest profit".

Thats such a silly arguement. I very much doubt its because they want to sell less systems. They are either breaking even or taking a small loss that a controller and game would cover it... how do they plan on selling that game or controller without selling consoles?

And what would nintendos incentive be? Seriously? You think they would choose no profit over small profit?

It's a balancing act for Sony.  Ship enough to keep the market competitive and drive your userbase, but not enough to really blow your bottom line.  And it's not like there's excess units just piling up, they're also going to more profitable regions and still selling well (or better in Europe's case) there.  There's not really anything revolutionary here, and all the factors we know add up; American market's where PS3 makes least revenue per unit, and where the most severe shortages are being reported.  I mean,  I guess it could really just be a combination of big coincidence and lack of foresight on Sony's part... maybe I just tend to give them more credit than you?  How silly of me! ;)

Nintendo's still sending America the MOST Wii units too, it's not like they're neglecting the region.  But why sell more in market you make less money than sell those same units in markets where you profit more?  Nintendo real issue was scaling production back last year, I don't think they expected quite the sort of US resurgence Wii's gone through.

the one that said xbox doesn't have a presence on other regions is a >insert fanboy insult here

kowenicki is in a bad mood today..


anyhow, he's right, the DS makes everything seem like a joke, except the PS2

Yep because Sony is screwing themselves by not having any consoles available for sale anywhere in the US during their biggest month of the year (probably apart from GT5) while MS is putting out pretty nice bundles for cheap. I suspect Xbox sales will do rather well in April also with Splinter Cell and then Alan Wake and Halo Reach Beta in May

Odd sort of thread for this site, given you have data at a mouse click suggesting this very result:

Console PS3; February 2010; America 329,034

Console X360; February 2010; America 405,082

Diff: 76K (360)

I think the rule of thumb is USA = 80% of Americas, so expect the difference to come in at about 61K (or 19%). Statistical tie between the 2 consoles could be as much as 10% so a 19% difference is well outside the margins of sampling error. A clear win for 360 is fully expected and anything less than a clear win would be a big surprise.

NPD January was somewhat of a surprise for some people because:
Console PS3; January 2010; America 497,530
Console X360; January 2010; America 497,275
(these might be post adjustment, I don't know for sure)
So expectation was for a marginal PS3 win (though statistical tie really). With numbers this close it was 50/50 which console would come out ahead in NPD. Perhaps the surprise was the amount by which 360 came out ahead.