You are wrong, it doesnt really matter how many countries it is, the only thing that matters is the amount of people living in the "Others"area compared to the number of people in NA. The market in NA is bigger now, I agree, but alot of countries in Europe is on the upswing and doing well. Like the old sovjet-countries for example, so the clientbase is growing more and more each year and in a couple of years I think that "Others" will be the most important market, because at that time, it will have the largest number of people that can acctually afford buying a console. 

I would have to say that Wojtas is right, actually. The demographics of Europe are quite different than that of a unified nation, like the US or Japan, and as such it is waaay more difficult to make, market and sell games for those nations, not to mention the fact that massive parts of europe are simply too poor to afford newer game consoles, which means there will be a longer tail for the PS2. The US will always be the bigger market when it comes to adopting new technology, at least for the forseeable future.

The Microsoft Xbox 360 is going to have an advantage in America, for a couple reasons, one is that Microsoft is an American company that understands the American market. Secondly, the Microsoft brand, while certainly a worldwide brand, is also strongest in America.

And once a platform gets a certain marketshare, the market tends to want to consolidate around a single platform....you want the same system your friends have, you want to protect your investment, you want longevity... you don't want an early death, like the original Xbox, or the gamecube...you want ps2 type lifespan.

Some people believed that Microsoft was a safe bet, because they are willing to lose milliions, illegally dump product, and other tactics that courts have shown are anti-competitive and illegal, in order to dominate a market.

From an ethics standpoint, its disgusting, but many people are pragmatists...they just want to pick the winner.

Add to that, if you are a fan of some of the exclusives, you have little choice.

So, not surprising to me the xBox is doing slightly better in the U.S., then the other regions it competes in.

People are basically performing a bit of magic to show the Xbox 360 ahead in one region: the U.S.  What they do, is take the fact that the Xbox 360 was released first to the market....include all its sales from its release date, but exclude the PS2 it was competing against in that year.

By ignoring previous generation, even though the PS2 is still a top seller, even this year, let alone last year.  By ignoring handhelds.  By ignoring other markets in the world.

By scrunching their face, and looking sideways, they determine the xbox 360 is ahead, at least for now, even though they admit the Wii will soon catch it.

It's not ahead at all...its deadlast, of currently selling systems.  WW sales this week, according to VGChartz (subject to revision of course).

On the other hand, Microsoft would say they are moving a lot of software....and that I agree with. Wii is getting a lot of system sales by selling to casual gamers...and PS3, the same...by selling to Blu ray movie buffs (some may argue they aren't gamers at all, but in the broad view, everyone is at least a casual gamer....almost everyone, at any rate).

So... getting a good slice of the large american market, and directly hitting the hard core gamer market...for consoles, not handhelds...isn't a bad thing that Microsoft did.

But, they are in the most precarious position... Nintendo doesn't yet have much competition in their segments... and Microsoft hasn't announced any real plans to compete in that range...whereas Sony does have som e solid plans to further their marketshare. I personally think the 65mm re-design, cost cut, and new smaller case...will help the PS3 in Japan, and in the blu-ray market, since its a rather bulky, ugly blu ray player at the moment, and still moves blu-ray sales....only the better if its sleek, and actually looks nice in your entertainment center. Plus, PS3 still has a large PS2 audience to try an entice to upgrade, and a slew of new games for 2008....

so solid plans by the competitors, yet to see how Microsoft is going to keep their marketshare, let alone increase it....but, I'm sure they will have a surprise or two, and especially int he U.S., a market they understand...shoudl continue to be a player.

MS has to find a way to be more competitive in Other (ie mostly Europe) vs Sony. With its battle lost in Japan, that's the only way for it to not become #3 in this round. Of course, they could choose to follow Nintendo's Gamecube example and try to become a profitable #3. We'll see.

Sony is in better shape, tho that is relative. A #2, but how far down will the post-holiday sales #s go? The 55K in Japan is an okay number by itself, but looking from that to the possible (probable) drop of 50% or more = sub-30K weeks in late Jan., low 20s in Feb.

Profits for Sony's gaming division are going to be hard to come by, I think. But I bet that sooner or later, Sony will claim PS3 is profitable because of estimated Blueray movies sales to those with PS3. Granted, technically a true statement to count those sales, but don't think for a moment that the movie division of Sony won't also count those sales as theirs!!

LOL!  Well, if you're going to accuse M$ of illegally dumping product, then you're going to have to accuse Sony of the same thing.  They lost more out of the gate on each PS3 than M$ did on each 360.

Unless I'm mistaken, consoles are like razors.  You lose money on the razor and make money on the blades (software).   I'm not a big fan of M$... I was going to get a PS3 initially.  But then I got tired of waiting for the PS3 and bought a 360 to play Halo and Oblivion.  In some ways I like the PS3 better (many of my friends have one), in some ways I like the 360 better, particularly considering the large number of games available (I own 13 games for the 360).

But I do agree with the very first part of your post... people want to protect their investment, etc.

"""Third (the punch): PS3 others are higher than US ps3 units sold numbers. I think that this is a serious sign as to how popular the ps3 is in each region, especially if you look at the Japan numbers for all consoles, the PS3 is the only one to not uphold the higher sales tendancy (not so long ago it sold some 70k now, a week before the new year it's down to 50k, while the xbox upholded it's 8-9 k and the Wii went above 200k from around 170k).""""

==> lol, WOW, +6k, WHAT AN INCREASE !

you should really be more worried about the Xbox360 hardware sales.
Considering the price, the bundle, the line-up, there will NEVER be a so big difference between the PS3 and the Xbox360.
They are selling about 1:1 since 1 month (I dont have check carefully and there were update but it was about 1:1)
In Xmas2008, I dont see how the Xbox360 will be able to match the PS3 sales.

"""The Europe ps3 sales numbers just awe struck me. This is a first, i think, for any console to have a larger userbase in Europe thanm in the US o.O . And while it's good that Europe buys those Ps3's, the market isn't anything as good as the US. I see trouble for the PS3 in the US. """

==> for europe, it is only the 1st Xmas for the PS3.
and for the sofware sales, are u blind to not see the 3-1 ratio between the userbase of the Xbox360-PS3 in NA ?

In Others, PS3 user base is alreayd buying more Assassin Creed and CoD4 than the Xbox360 user base.

"""You are wrong, it doesnt really matter how many countries it is, the only thing that matters is the amount of people living in the "Others"area compared to the number of people in NA. The market in NA is bigger now, I agree, but alot of countries in Europe is on the upswing and doing well. Like the old sovjet-countries for example, so the clientbase is growing more and more each year and in a couple of years I think that "Others" will be the most important market, because at that time, it will have the largest number of people that can acctually afford buying a console. """"

==> +1 for you TurboSvans

As in 2020 the biggest market will be China and India ...

I wonder what Wii sales will be like next week. They probably shipped the next two weeks of consoles by air so they would be here for Christmas. There might be close to zero sales for the Wii for the rest of the year.

probably wii will fall ALOT

@Crumas, I believe he was talking more along the lines of the Company OUTSIDE the entertainment devision, Microsoft has done some notoriously shady things in foreign country's.