The trend that one can see now in Europe is that the Wii is the leading system with the highest sales followed by the PS3... Having REALLY healthy sales over there. That 399 euro mark and built in Blu-Ray player isn't that bad... What is noticeable is that, when a new format for Video is introduced in Europe... It tends to be picked up really fast.

Example: First Blu-ray movies started to appear in Video-rental shops... Now they have like 2 shelves in 1 month as opposed to 0 HD-DVD. Same in Software/Music/Video shops. 8 shelves Blu-ray 1/2 shelves of HD-DVD... HD-Battle has already been wagged in Europe and the PS3 will benefit of it.

Only thing that could save Microsoft is Seriously upgrade the Arcade-bundle and get it to 249 euros or just lower the price of all the SKU's drastically in a final mad attempt to hold a firm grip on Europe. Then i might just pick up an X360...

Back to my point: That PS3 Blu-ray thing that is starting to pick up in Europe... Even i'm going to be forced to get myself a PS3 because i'm going to have to switch to Blu-Ray within the coming 1.5 years... PS3 is the cheapest on the market and plays HD-Games so it's an obvious choice. Wii will stay dominant though. It's lead is just to big and just look at the sales of this week (1.45 mil, SICK)...

PS3 will improve in N/A with a lower price, and Games like MGS4, FF13 and GTA4. I know a few ps2 owners that will buy a PS3 for GTA4. Really, N/A is a matter of time; time will tell if the ps3 will make or break. I think it will make :D but I'm bias :P but seriously, I think N/A will eventually be Sony land once again.

Rugger08 said: 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.

I'm guessing 400k Ww for Wii next week... Around 100k for America. healthy Japan although with drop-off (110k) and like 160k for Europe

TalonMan said: TWRoO said: you should note the Gamecube did significantly better in the US than elsewhere, in fact comparing to the PS2 the GC ratio is just over 4:1 in America, unlike in Europe wher it is over 10:1, and Japan where it is over 6:1 And yet 4:1 last generation to nearly 1:3 this generation is soley due to cheap consumers??? Cost is always a factor no matter what country you live in, but it is certainly not the ONLY one and trying to label the US consumer as 'cost concious' (especially when we're talking about luxury entertainment items) is a joke...

 Ahh yes very true, but like I said in another thread, parents (ESP around christmas time), looking for presents for their children don't usually go to what they find "worth the cost". My Dad in fact was looking to buy my little brothers a "video game system" and asked my opinion on what to get. I explained to him what each console does, what games they offer and what not, and the first words out of his mouth were how much do they cost? Thats nice if a FAMILY is planning on investing money for something to go into their living room, but if it's for kids, not so likely. For $399 my dad could get a Video game console, a DVD upscaler, a Blu-ray player for his HD-TV, and a means of having video chat via living room with his beloved son who lives 40 miles away, OR he could spend $250 for a "video game console".

Simple fact of the matter is, he doesn't feel like spending 400 dollars. Brand recognition is big I will admit, but cost is a HUGE factor out here. Home shopping network makes a killing off average joe, places like Wallmart, Cosco, and K-mart don't get the sales because of their "quality shopping experience." I see it every day, percieved value acounts for way more than actual value. 

You and I both know that for every top end Digital Camera sold, 5 bottom of the bucket fly off the shelves. Unless Sony can get beyond it's "Just a video game console".  I don't see average family forking out money for it. At least not with a cost difference of $150 >_> 

libellule said: """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.

What are you blabbering about?First off, where do you see a 6k increase? Either you mistyped it or you're trying t pull a fast one. Second off, why get so offensive?It doesn't make me want to talk with you in any case. And why even bring up software? Did i say anything about software? Did i say anything about low software sales for the PS3? No, i only talked about low PS3 sales in Japan for the week before christmas. Get a grip and stop making offensive remarks.

 

TurboSvans said: Wojtas said: Europe is composed of over 30 countries, which are very different from each other in terms of holidays, culture, wealth etc., it does not have the same potential as the US in terms of possible sellthroughs. Why? Look at the charts to understand, the US being only one country sells more hardware and software than sometimes the rest of the world combined. 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.

Going by your logic, Turkey should be a gaming mecca because the country has a total of over 100 million citizens, which means that it has more people than either Germany or England. Yet Turkey is not a gaming mecca, why? Because your theory is completely flawed to begin with. You must assume that because so many people buy games in the US and in a couple other countries that have a decent amount of people, then games will always sell well, which of course is pointless, because you don't take crucial factors into account, such as gaming traditions, culture, wealth of the nation etc. etc.

In Europe only the western countries, with access to the ocean are really gaming countries (England,France, Spain), why? Because all novelties used to go to Europe through those countries first, and they were the first to adapt those cultural  changes that they deemed useful, nice or anything else, the eastern parts, along with germany either very slowly adapt to these changes or not at all.  

 

ChronotriggerJM said: @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.

I understood.  But M$ doesn't really "dump products".  They use one monopoly, their desktop OS, to try and illegally gain other monopolies, i.e. - server OS, browser, etc.  I've followed M$ very extensively for years, and "product dumping" doesn't seem to be one of their vices.

 

So I responded to his post regarding the only product I can identify that M$ "dumps"... their consoles.

 

TalonMan said: TWRoO said: Firstly I don't understand why you are trying to compare this generation to last, because all the systems are different, people are not buying a GC now because the PS3 price is too high. (though some would argue they are buying 2 GCs) I was just pointing out that, ignoring the price, GC was considerably more popular in the USA than elsewhere, in numbers or comparing consoles. Secondly I would agree with you, price is probably less of an issue in the USA than it is in Europe (Japan I would guess is less bothered about price than USA, possibly because electronics are considerably cheaper there anyway, but i could be wrong) So i wasn't wrguing with your main point, but pointing out that what you said about GC being in third despite being the cheapest didn't make much sense for your argument. The only comparison I was making was a counter-point to Chronotrigger's 'America love's cheap, regardless of Quality' comment - if that were always the case, then the GCN would have obviously outsold both the PS2 and the Xbox...    ...what's so wrong with that statement??? The GCN coming in 3rd despite being the cheapest went right to the very essence of contradicting the poster's statement, I don't understand why you don't understand that...     ??? Edit: I went back and reread my post and maybe I wasn't clear in what I was saying. What I meant was that the GCN was outsold 4:1 last generation and the Wii has completely reversed that trend (at nearly 3:1) - and that can't be SOLEY due to cost alone...

Maybe it was me that wasn't clear?... I was pointing out that using GC an argument against America buying the cheapest stuff doesn't work.

Worldwide it is obvious that the low price didn't help the GC, as it did end up in third place, but it was clearly much much more popular in America than elsewhere.... That could actually be used as a point to show that Americans do buy the cheap stuff, because it was cheapest in all three regions but the USA was the one that picked it up more.

I don't agree about it myself, the GC was more popular in America due to Nintendo being generally more popular there, it wasn't to do with price.... so it was co-incidence.