thats a fair point..... but that wasnt the original point was it - you seem to have changed the argument somewhat.

You said it was its weakest market... the stance seems to have now shifted to they need to do better in the UK... I could not disagree with that - its obvious. 

But it is also obvious that The UK is not its weakest market. 

To summarise in a way that you simply must agree with.... the UK is actually by market penetration (and any other business and accounting measure) the PS3's strongest market, but in comparative terms by market share it isnt, they need to do better.

Still, you must remember that it released about 16 months later than the 360.

PS3 is so weak in UK.

its not weak. its always been behind cause the 360 released alot earlier. 360 had 2 extra holidays and has always had a price advantage aswell. ps3 is lucky to be behind by only 2.5 million when you consider that.

I rarely comment on threads but this one had me pretty exasperated.

Ethomaz hasn't really changed what he was trying to say - he has only changed how he has gone about saying it.  I find it hard to believe that those commenters who took him to task didn't really have a grasp of the message he was trying to convey.

Kowenicki - earlier in this thread you acknowledged the imperfect medium that text-only communication presents, yet up until the above post you seemed unwilling to take this into account in your assessment of what Ethomaz had to say.

On the other hand I completely agree with your assessment of our 'business analyst' - a market is not defined by the population of a country but by the consumers that are interested in the the products that you (and your competitors) have to offer.  This generation is pretty mature now so it's unrealistic to expect major changes in those markets - thus the UK can be expected to remain by far the biggest market in Europe even though it has a smaller population than France. Therefore the biggest opportunity for Sony is the UK's existing Xbox and Wii customers - Sony has itself identified Wii & Xbox owners as the target for this price cut.

I wonder if it's really asking too much of us all to try to understand what others are trying to say rather than trying to score points over one another.  As has already been said depending on how you interpret strongest/weakest/most important can make either side of this argument seem like the 'right' one.

On the other hand perhaps winding each other up is all that's left in a market with few surprises left up its sleeve!

PS3 launched March 2007 in UK I believe with 360 launching December 2005.  So roughly speaking PS3 has had 53 months on the market and 360 has had 68 months which means that average montly sales for each has been 77,766 a month for the PS3 and 96,417 for the 360.  So demand for the PS3 really isn't that much behind 360.

Now, that's a flat average, and of course a lot of sales occur for Christmas, so of course the fact that 360 has had two extra holiday spikes means that it has an extra weight of advantage.  Personally I'd say the evidence is that the 360 doesn't dominate the UK market over the PS3 and that the PS3 still sells pretty well in a crowded market.

To me the 360's lead is simply a function of two additional peak spikes plus additional time in the market and a lower price rather than some huge preference, and that's what the numbers strongly indicate.

The UK is actually close to evenly split across the HD consoles with the Wii being the closest to more dominant.  The US, Japan and other European countries are where the PS3/360 see much more divisive gaps.

I always find the assumptions about the UK funny, rather like Kow TBH, as in fact the market comes close to equally supporting both consoles, both offer unique features right now specific to the market (SKY on 360 and iPlayer on PS3 for example) and in fact it's Wii software that sells the most with the Wii still ahead despite recent dips.

PS3 launched March 2007 in UK I believe with 360 launching December 2005.  So roughly speaking PS3 has had 53 months on the market and 360 has had 68 months which means that average montly sales for each has been 77,766 a month for the PS3 and 96,417 for the 360.  So demand for the PS3 really isn't that much behind 360.

Now, that's a flat average, and of course a lot of sales occur for Christmas, so of course the fact that 360 has had two extra holiday spikes means that it has an extra weight of advantage.  Personally I'd say the evidence is that the 360 doesn't dominate the UK market over the PS3 and that the PS3 still sells pretty well in a crowded market.

To me the 360's lead is simply a function of two additional peak spikes plus additional time in the market and a lower price rather than some huge preference, and that's what the numbers strongly indicate.

The UK is actually close to evenly split across the HD consoles with the Wii being the closest to more dominant.  The US, Japan and other European countries are where the PS3/360 see much more divisive gaps.

I always find the assumptions about the UK funny, rather like Kow TBH, as in fact the market comes close to equally supporting both consoles, both offer unique features right now specific to the market (SKY on 360 and iPlayer on PS3 for example) and in fact it's Wii software that sells the most with the Wii still ahead despite recent dips.