You made me think of this:

interesting note on the software sales aspect, when somone brings a disc back because its been ringed by a 360, does that count as an extra sale? I have to replace people's 360 discs on a daily basis. I've literally never seen damage done to a blu-ray disc by the playstation

Side-note EDIT: 

I'm fairly new to this forum, so I apologize if this thread or somehting like it exists already...

Off-topic. This isn't what the thread is discussing. OP is asking about pure sales and if you align the launches, the PS3 has been selling better.

1. Not if you align the launches.
2. You have no way to prove that, besides both the XBox 360 and PS3 lost billions for their respective corporations. Yes, you heard me, BOTH. Whether one of them lost more money than the other is irrelevnat. That's like a murderer telling someone he is a better person than another murderer because he killed 1 less person.
3. Yes, it did. But if you align the launches I wonder if this would still be true. 
4. True.

Most of Xbox 360s success all comes down to that 1-year headstart. Yes in a way the 360 is more successful but I refer you back to my analogy above. If I wanted to I could argue that the PS3 is more successful considering everything it has overcome such as the high launch price and fierce competition. But that is a thread for another day.

Few points:
1) 360 failure rate is notably higher than ps3 failure rate
2) Extended warranty was given after a few years and wasn't always available - during the worst (highest failure rate) period of the 360, the 3 year warranty didn't exist, and by the time it had come in effect, most of the people with dead consoles had long since bought new ones.
3) people comparing overall sales and software attach rates for consoles released a year apart need their heads examining.

360 has been a more SUCCESSFUL console (profits, market share, public opinion)
ps3 has been a better selling console (sold roughly the same amount in a year less on sale)

Contest that all you want, that's just how things are.

Again, people comparing attach rates and total sales need their heads examining, would comparing a year old consoles sales and software attach rate, to a console that has just been released be accurate?, no, because that time difference effects the result, it's comparing apples to oranges, and people need to stop doing it.

Thread should have ended here... OP's points are baseless, since 360 software sales is higher.

But then again, I have purchased 4 xbox 360s this gen (20gb, elite, 4gb slim and most recently halo4 ltd edition.

In keeping with this the much MORE pressing issue of whether or not the Genesis or SNES version of Aladdin is better.  Might as well talk about superiority when things are, or are heading in, the direction of past generation.

What MS has accomplished without sales in Japan is impressive. COD became a de facto exclusive on top of all of the other exclusives. It also became the go-to console for casuals after the Wii faded.

While RROD is a big issue, it obviously didn't have that big of an effect considering warranty and the attach rate, and that they have sold tens of millions more games than the PS3.

I am also not sure that either console will be supported as long as the PS2 was. One of the reasons the original Xbox was dropped so quickly was the mandatory hard drive. It made it difficult to sell cheap enough for it to be worth it. In addition, a larger proportion of Xbox fans were hardcore and thus more likely to switch to the 360 immediately. On the other hand, both HD consoles have a more PS2-like mix of hardcore and casual gamers and prices have not fallen as much as they had at this point in the last generation, so there is a larger chance of continued support for both machines.

whon whon whon well must we sing the same ol yada yada that based on non-sense?  did you count my couple ylod ps3s that padded sonys numbers? i got variables too

the world hates microsoft

japan support their own  -- where would xbox be if they sold just 10 percent of ps numbers in xenophobia?  20k vs 500 this week

xbox has been kinda sluggish game wish for 3 years

even with all that here we are still worrying about which of these 2 or doing better

Currently PS3 is selling better on a worldwide basis, which matters the most. The next gen should be more interesting since we'll have head to head competition.

Psst, where does the xbox sell best?