Exactly! That's why it's selling so well.  Despite a $600 price tag and few games throughout most of the year, it has managed to keep pace with the 360's first year! Why? Because of brand loyalty. Despite the fact that there was a game drought from April to August, and despite the hefty price tag, millions of consoles were still purchased. What's going to happen next year? The price will be $399 and titles like Tekken 6, MGS4, GT5, as well as new IPs like LittleBigPlanet and White Knight Story, and other potential killer apps like Killzone 2 will be releasing month after month. Sales should really pick up next year.

Sales should increase even moreso in Japan, where the high profile multiplats will essentially be ps3 exclusive. When it comes to picking a console for GTAIV, 95% of the people will choose a ps3 over a 360, and most Capcom games like DMC4 won't even be released on the 360 over there.

@Destroyer of Knights

360 without competition for first year? Actually it was competing with the hype of the PS3. Everyone was waiting for it to come out before buying a next gen console. Remember, Sony promised that PS3 will blow the X360 and Wii away.

PS3 launching with a very expensive price tag: I still bought one though, Price tag is very integral to sales of a console, you cannot isolate this factor and say that PS3 will be selling better w/o this price tag.

@makingmusic476

sure 95% of those in Japan whow ill play GTAIV and DMC4 will get it for PS3, but how many percent of PS3 owners in Japan are interested in western style games??? Look at Uncharted, 1.5M PS3 owners and it only sold 7k in one week.

DMC has been in the top 5 of Famitsu's most wanted list for like a year. :|

GTA usually sells okay in Japan as well, with 3, VC, and SA selling around 400k in total in the country.

@makingmusic476

GTA sold ~400k last gen because it had twice/thrice/four times the userbase for PS back then. As for DMC4, yep this one will sell well in Japan as it's not really a western game.

@makingmusic

here's the data:

GTA3 was released in Japan Oct 25, 2003

PS2 had 13.6 mil userbase for Japan during GTA3 launch
http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Japan&cons2=PS3&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&start=37626&end=37927&weekly=1

It sold a measly 123,482 units in Japan during launch week w/ LTD sales of 360k
http://vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=891

 So it has sold well for a console that no one has any real-world application to buy it for? Would that mean the Xbox360 sold poorly for a console that did have some games?

It's all relative. Compard to the 360, the ps3 sold well. Compared to the ps3, I guess it could be said that the 360 sold poorly.

All because of the brand, though the hardware problems didn't help the 360 any.

You're focusing on GTA specifically and missing the point of my post.

Big name multiplat ps3/360 games will sell loads of ps3s in Japan, but few 360s.

 That's of course if you look at international numbers, in the US it's down by about a million units after the first year. One would expect a system that can actually sell in Japan and has 2 successful predicessors to sell better than the 360's mediocre first year, not worse.