So, I was reading the latest troll thread by kirby, and thought of something he said. Basically, he said that 2nd place doesn't matter anymore as the time is nearly up, summarizing that the most important thing is that 360 is way up and ps3 is way down.

That got me thinking. Just how far down has ps3 come?

What follows are price history and sales for consoles within those pricing segments.

10/26/2000 US$299.99 LAUNCH
05/14/2002 US$199.99 30 Million (sold 26)
05/13/2003 US$179.99 50 Million (Jan 2003) (sold 47.6)
05/11/2004 US$149.99 70 Million (sold 66.4)
04/20/2006 US$129.99 100 Million (Nov. 2005)

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/352440

ps3 life = 4 years, 7 months
ps2 after 4 yr, 7mo= 71M

cut off= 4.8 M

So, 26M @299
21.6M @ 199
18.8M @ 179
4.8M @ 149$

PS3 price drops

11/16/2006 US499 (15.35M)
10/28/2008 US399 (7.73M)
8/24/2009 US299 (27.17M)

totals

So, 26M @299= 7.77B
21.6M @ 199=4.3B
18.8M @ 179=3.36B
4.8M @ 149$=715M

11/16/2006 US499 (15.35M)=7.65B
10/28/2008 US399 (7.73M)=3.08B
8/24/2009 US299 (27.17M)=8.123B

totals:
PS2 16.145B
PS3 18.85B

holy shit would you look at that. Unfortunately, it's really impossible to measure the games since vgc doesn't have good records of game sales in early ps2 days. So, I can't go there, but looking at an inflation calculator, it says inflation has gone up 28 %. Also, I set the ps3 release price to 500, to cover not knowing how many of each were sold, and because my point was to say that ps3 matches the ps2, I erred on the side of me being wrong.

After all is said and done, ps3 hardware vs ps2 is between roughly 700M and 1.5B off from what the ps2 did.
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

First number of 700M considers half of release consoles sold at 499, and half at 599.

So, to conclude, money spent on playstation hardware (console only) has dropped between 3.5 and 8%, or something like that. I'm not an expert, so do the numbers yourself if you're going to be a critic. :P

The other conclusions to be made are hard to decide on. It's possible that, overall, ps3 total hardware has grossed more than ps2 hardware, given more expensive controllers, and  Playstation Move. On the other hand, ps2 may have moved more software in the same time frame.

Well, this certainly was interesting. At a drop of ~5% with several other factors not coming in, I think it's safe to say that spending has not gone down at all in the transition from ps2 to ps3, meaning that while the install base has diminished, the potential IS there to sell more consoles.

Another very interesting tidbit is that at 299$, the ps2 sold 26M in 2 years.  In 3 months, it will be 2 years since the price drop to 299$ for the ps3, and IT HAS ALREADY SOLD 27.7M. It is up an entire 1.7M with three months to go.

Selling at an average of 100k per week until that time, we will see a, roughly, 3M increase, which is 11.5% increase of the two systems sold at the same price. At 199$, PS2 sold 21.6M units. Looking at an 11.5% increase carrying over, we get 24M over the course of one year, easily putting it over the 360.

So, the only question is, when are we getting this price drop? =P

Thanks for reading.

tl;dr

PS3 may be at 70M by this time next year. Toppling 360 in sales, and ps2 in revenue.

They still lost money with all the legal stuff going on and the PSN failure.

what's your point? We already knew that. They've lost something like 6B over the course of the ps3....

This whole thread was to show whether or not ps3 has actually fallen, and concludes with how much it may be up in the coming year. Nobody is saying that Sony ran a good business here. They lost a lot. However, as far as customer financing, it's pretty even with where they were before with hardware sales.

I see.

Interesting data, but I'm not sure I understand the point here. So people spent more money on PS3 hardware than PS2 hardware while buying less consoles? How is that a good thing?

It seems to me like it's a bad thing both for gamers and Sony.

For gamers it's obvious why... For Sony, hardware is loss-leading so making more revenue on that means losing more money selling less consoles and consequently less software, which is what they really want to sell.

It isn't a good comparison. You have to take into account the fact that Sony cut the price of the PS2 well before they actually needed to from a sales perspective because they prioritised market share. You have to remember that not everyone who pays $199 or $299 for a console would be unwilling to pay more, infact most would be willing to pay more. Another thing is that the launch price in Euros betweem

Also you have to take into account that the value of the PS2 in 2006 dollars was $347 if you take inflation into account.

Finally you also have to factor in memory cards. Every PS3 has internal memory whereas the PS2 required additional memory cards.

Nice try but I don't think you can really make any real conclusions with the data you presented or at least not the conclusion you're trying to make.

Either consider profit or sales numbers. Revenue is simply a way of skewing the data to make it appear to fit a particular point.

If you want to consider it as "Is Sony happier with the PS2 or PS3", then you should consider the profitability of the two consoles.

If you want to consider it as "Which would VGChartz say did best" Then you should consider sales figures.

What does comparing revenue actually achieve? Convince me to care.

Couldn't really state it better myself... revenue total doesn't mean jack shit in the business world unless it's more than what they're paying out, the only light you gain from this info is that you're not hurting as badly as you could be...

Well I thank you for the work, but it is just a very bad comparison.

Things that makes this worthless:

• currency
• inflation
• no sw data. Especially with a business model like we have now. Software makes up for hardware.
• accessories
• costs

It is a nice way to make things look brighter for Sony, but it does not work like that. The biggest argument to prove you wrong is the point that Sony would cut their left arm to be in the same position with the PS3 like they were with the PS2.

Mmmhmmm... so the significantly higher priced hardware generated more revenue?

Not sure what to make of this information.