i suppose that crazzymans predictions will be best to be check at the end of 2008. We'll have full year data on PS3 hardware and will be able to compare it to ps2 hw for it's respective year on the market.

Stever89,
I enjoyed your post, but one suggestion: You could change the 3rd comparison to Europe only. That would make big difference because the PS3 is currently 400k ahead of the PS2 in Europe.

http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Europe&cons2=PS3&reg2=Europe&cons3=GC&reg3=Europe&weeks=58

I just found this thread, keep up the great job Crazzyman, the Ps3 sales this year should be very interesting, not as high as PS2 but very respectable.

@ CrazzyMan

If the PS3 continues to roughly track PS2 sales for the second year you have very good ammunition.

And I think it will when the major titles are released this year.

In fact I think the PS3's second year may well beat the PS2's second year.

reverie said: Stever89, I enjoyed your post, but one suggestion: You could change the 3rd comparison to Europe only. That would make big difference because the PS3 is currently 400k ahead of the PS2 in Europe. http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Europe&cons2=PS3&reg2=Europe&cons3=GC&reg3=Europe&weeks=58

Yeah I see that now. The darn delayed launches really kills "easy" comparisons. Just remeber, the PS2 did not have its holiday boost yet, while the PS3 did. We'll have to wait another 10 weeks or so, so that the PS2 can have it's holiday sales, and then compare. I did use Europe as my base for "Others" in my complete comparisons though, since Europe is most of "Others" anyway.

CrazzyMan, I will be interested to see how the PS3 2008 numbers compare to PS2 2001 numbers. Though I find the comparisons unfair (since 2008 is really the PS3's second year on the market, while the PS2 was only one the market for a year in Japan by 2001), I will be looking forward to just how well the PS3 does to the PS2.

@MikeB: Exactly what do you mean by "second year"? Are you saying PS2's second year, as CrazzyMan has it (2001), or do you mean second year, as in weeks 52 - 104 per region? This is very important. If second year is 1 year after being released in any given territory, then the PS2s second year would be March 2001 to March 2002. But that's semi flawed because NA and Others had only been out for 4ish months by that point, so that's not NA and Others 2nd year. Also, I have PS2 second year as 18 million, and if you use CrazzyMan's numbers, it's 16 million, but that is only how you look at it. See here. This is what I'm talking about. If you compare PS2 "All" and PS3 "All" the lines aren't actually at that different. But because of the launch differences, PS2 only had Japan for the first 35 weeks, while the PS3 had both Japan and NA (which NA is a much  larger market), and the PS3 was only barely beating PS2 numbers. That's why you break it down into regions. Now CrazzyMan is using years in which the PS3 and PS2 were both out in all regions, but the PS3 has been out in all regions for roughly 9 months, while the PS2 had only been out for a 2 or 3 months by that time, which is why I dislike the comparison. I'd rather see each region aligned to launch (which is what I did in my comparison).

And I'm not saying this to put down your comparison, CrazzyMan, since I am interested (especially with how well the PS3 is doing thus far). I'm simply asking people to be careful when they are using graphs and numbers as support for or against any arguement. Especially with past consoles, since their release dates are so spread out, usually almost a full year between Japan and Others.

So I am interested in PS3 sales

yes I'm a sony hater, and not PS3, I hate Sony about as much as I hate MS when they push on me softwares....

believe in PS3 success of what ??? the little hope of being second....????

now that stated I still have the right to express my opinion in a civilized way, the fact that I agree or disagree shouldn't be the point...

now I wonder how you can even compare PS2 to PS3 sales.... both console don't occupy the same position on the market... PS2 was the lower tech when PS3 is the higher one, the prices are not comparable and the market changed a lot since then.... it's like comparin the sales of the first motorola GSM with the razor today.....

now you said something interesting... you stated that PS3 beat XB in December that indeed is true.... by exactly 142728 unit using data from the 2nd of December to the 5th of January (to compensate the one day missing in December which is really fairly in your advantage their as the gap is the widest the first week of jan compare to the rest) you do realize that in one month it barely did what it needs to do every week to even start talking about closing substantially the gap.... now let say it's virtualy the first year of PS3 like you said, I would then call that a total crash not being able to catch more market share the first Christmas holiday against a console which has been around longer.... especially if the hope is to catch up some day....

now I wonder why people think every PS2 user is going to shift to PS3 at some point??? looking at the difference in generation there is absolutely no sign or reason to believe that...

other point, do you really all believe there is actually 114 million+ PS2 user out there ???? a good part of it is rebuy, for the second if not the third time

final point PS2 is still selling strong I highly doubt that people who just bought a PS2 in 2007 are just about to shit to the PS3.....

that said I really don't see the point in comparing sales number between those 2, however you chose to put it....
and I still don't believe PS3 can win on brand name anymore.... what PS3 can hope to do is save the PS console all together on the long run...
people tend to forget that time is playing against PS3, the more time they take to "jump in" (i had to make that one lol) the less chance it has to happen what ever game, marketing scheme or else they do, if by 2009 they didn't start to seriously catch up they are doomed.... it will be too far in the generation to change the tendency.... and you don't need to hate or love the console to be realistic about that.... I'm not saying there is 0 chance for it to happen (like crazy said time will tell us the truth) but as the week goes what ever big title is coming the chances are shrinking.... in other words even if PS3 close the gap a little with those game if we don't see a real change in 2008 it will be too late... 3rd parties and gamers won't wait until 2010, at that time they'll be already talking about the next gen consoles

P.S. : i'm about to do a group project for my MBA industrial economics class on the gaming industry, i'll be starting a post on it soon to get help data and point of views. anybody's help will be welcome (yeah it means PS3 lovers/haters, WII lovers/haters, XB lovers/haters) just try to be objective and provide accurate data :)

In this 2001's week PS2 saw the Onimusha release, which caused the almost double hardware sales in Japan. Since PS3 has no releases this week, expect PS2 to outsell PS3 by a large margin. Next week there's DMC4. Will it make things even? (I doubt it, since it's multi).

I think this week maybe will be the start of PS2's sales take off, with PS3 catching it up again only in the GTAIV release week (and I mean weekly sales, not year to date).

We could always use some graph-love:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pcWh4PBsQcfbi96R1gtPdGw

oh without saying that what ever happens.... Sony is far from winning in terms of benefit on that generation, that could mean two things.... the financial power they'll have to buy exclu, keep them and finance ad campaigns to boost the sales... and even the capacity of doing a new gen....

again everybody is talking about MS losing money on their entertainment dpt, but everybody tend to forget that it's a company that has increased their net profit in the past few years where sony had theirs declining, without saying that the net profit of both companies is not comparable, when it comes to money power Sony is a midget compare to MS

i'm not trying to destroy your dreams crazy, I'm just pointing at facts that are not playing in favor of PS3.... they do have great exclu titles coming up but IMHO it's a drop in the see compare to all the negative points they have and they'll have to face.... adding it up all together Sony and PS3 are still running dead for now...

That fair or unfair thing..

is that fair to compare ps2 japan sales which started in march and had 1 mln. consoles available in first 4 weeks with ps3 in november, which had only around 250k?
is that fair to compare ps2 sales of usa which started in October with ps3 sales which started in november?
is that fair to compare ps2 sales of europe which started in November with ps3 sales which started in march?
is that fair to compare x360/wii sales of europe which started in November with ps3 sales which started in march?
is it fair to compare ps3 sales in others(which did only 30k in first 16 week), with x360/wii sales in others of their first 16 weeks?
is that fair to compare sales of console which cost on launch 600$ with consoles which cost 250$ and 400$?

That`s why if you will compare sales from launch in every region, it will be also JUST unfair. It`s unfair to compare any sales of system, which are not launched in same time, same price and etc. BUT you can JUST look/comapre at sales of system from it`s 1st year of LIFE, 2nd year of LIFE and etc. =) I am not looking at system sales, when they reached 1 year selling time in every region(though i could, but this would be still unfair and not interesting for me), i`m just looking at sales since 2st year of system LIFE(system life begins when it`s first time available in the world and end when stoped officialy being produced). =)
And again, comparing ps2 WW sales since march 2001 to march 2002 with PS3 sales since November 2007 till November 2008 is just uncomfortable, and you CAN`T see how system where doing in same month. IF you will compare november ps3 sales with march ps2 sales, you will only see how systems were doing in different month of their 2nd year.
While taking same month of 2nd year, will show how system were doing in more similar conditions. In january any system sales usually goes down, in Christmas goes up.
Month is only one fair condition - objective parameter.