That.

I don't think it would have overtaken it by now, but the gap would be a max of a few 100K. That's just as long as Sony could have kept up with demand.

I live in a PAL territory. I can only speak of personal experience/opinion in this matter.

I know that if PS3 launched in 06 with hardware BC - I'd have bought one at launch for AUD$995 - still I paid AUD$695 for the PSX at launch and wasn't worried.

The six months wait wasn't so bad, and in Australia, was kind of expected- the removal of hardware BC was a MASSIVE slap in the face. Especially since I'd bought one of those new fangled LCD HDTV's in 2006 and couldn't connect my PS2 to it without buying new fangled cables.

Removing a feature that is key to your established user base upgrading - in your largest market showed me how much they wanted my business.

I thought all phats were BC with PS2 and I know a lot of PS3s are BC with PS1. 300 AUD increase from PS1 to PS3? not bad I think in america it was a 500$ increase. Still terrible prices overall.

Hmm, I think it could've shifted the balance of the "console war" 10 to 15 million in playstation's favour. The Xbox may not have sold huge amounts before the PS3 launched, but it helped it get a lot of mindshare (particularly in the US.) If they had launched simultaneously the Xbox would have sold less than it did and just generally penetrated the market less. This would've likely resulted in less investment from 3rd parties (and possibly MS) in the Xbox generally and more of a shift towards the PS3.
People will probably disagree with me but I think the overall console war would've been very different.

Looking at the numbers, the PS3 actually sells better. I even predict that the ps3 will outsell the Xbox360 in the next 2 years, the exclusive titles are way more promising and Sony was able to push a version of the PS3 through a certification process in china.

In terms of money the Xbox 360 was a complete mess. The first generations had a failure rate of up to 50%. And honestly, Microsoft will have a really tough battle in the next gen, same as in the current one. Exclusive games are selling the console and right now Sony has the upper hand. Beyond, The Last of Us, Ni no Kuni, God of War.

I also read a lot about the Xbox 360 being the superior console from US folks. I only see one, the controller, and the quality of them really sucks. Take that away, what's left? It's all about your favorite games. Seems like NA buyers just enjoy Halo and Gears of War an awful lot more than PS3 exclusives.

Hardware BC - the one thing PS3 unarguably hands down did better than 360 at launch - if you lived in NA/JPN. And was top bullet point in the PS3/360 advantages/disadvantages.Full software support vs a list of a few hundred emulation supported titles.

Hardware BC - not limited library emulation like the 360 had. And the PS3's software emulation had less titles supported than 360 - and bugs were rife. That ended up being taken away anyway - while funnily enough - it's the 360 that supports more 6th gen titles now. Although supporting more than zero isn't hard.

Like I said - to yank out that emotion engine that cost around $20 - for a unit I'd be paying AUD$995 for (and indeed all us PAL territories pay a premium over our NA counterparts - but that's cool - if we're basically not getting gimped hardware too.

That they expected their PS2 library loyals to upgrade to PS3 at that cost  - without even giving us the opportunity other territories and gimping the motherboard -  was a huge slap in the face. Like I said before - I bought a PSX at launch (for $695AUD - I think I was earning $10 an hour working retail back in 95) - I'd supported them for launches, bought a ton of software for 12 years (95-07).

As a PAL gamer for 30+ odd years - it's the biggest regional hardware gimping slap in the face I can recall. The only thing that comes close was when Nintendo borked the component out ports of PAL Gamecubes. Though I cared less about that because a) I didn't have a component capable TV til around when 360 was launched - and b) I DID have a ton of PS2 games that I had to play still (mostly unsupported)  , most of which were bettr than launch PS3 games - and limited room under the TV with a 360 and Wii there already to have to keep a PS2 AND a PS3 there.

So - more on topic - if the OP means if it launched globally and had hardware BC - and wasn't more than AUD$995 for the 60gb/hardware BC model - It would have sold one more unit to me at launch at least. Maybe more. Probably quite a few PS2 owners wouldn't have dragged their feet.

You're asking too much.

Actually if Sony managed to release the PS3 in November 2006 worldwide it means they wouldn't have had any prodcution problems so supply should have been healthy in both regions.

Anyway I just realized that XBox 360 launched in 2005 so I don't think it is certain that PS3 would have stolen that many 360 sales as the damage had already been done....

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I remember to have read that the war between BD and HD-DVD caused blue laser shortages during 2006, and this forced Sony to a staggered launch.

https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=blue+lasers+shortage+ps3+launch&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

So if this was the only reason, it's likely that were Sony able to do a global launch, it could have sold more.