We have no accurate sources for EU sales period, other than scattered articles and such commenting on this country or that.

As such, especially now that Sony has joined MS and Nintendo and changed to a fairly strict definiton of shipped aka "sold to retailers" , shipments as reported in quarterly financial statements are truly the most accurate measure of worldwide sales we're going to get.

I have noticed a lot of people try to spin sales numbers, While there's no doubt Europe is a strong region for Sony, many Sony fanboys actually try to make Europe out to be much bigger and more mysterious than it actually is. For example, in the last generation Sony shipped slightly more PS2's to North America than to all of EU! Shipments can help clarify all that.

So here's the latest totals as of 12/31/07

360: 17.7 million

PS3: 10.49 million

So I guess the question is when or if Sony takes the WW shipment lead, even with the huge advantage of an accepting Japan, basically meaning 3 territories with sales to Microsoft's only 2?

And the last quarter reported was calender (I'll keep it simple by avoiding fiscal years) fourth 07, 3 months ending 12/31. In that we had 360 4.3 million, PS3 4.9 million. So PS3 didn't win by as much as certainly the Sony fanboys have you believe these days! It was only +600K, in the busiest q of the year and that was with Japan. And that was after the price drop to 399 as well contained in that Q.

So we see basically 360 currently has a lead of about 7.2 million. We currently see PS3 winning by around 80k-100k/month in Japan, consistently, assuming PS3 reverts to it's former 20k/week slow time of year levels as it appears it now has. PS3 just won USA Jan by 39k obviously. It's tough to analyze but I see PS3 even winning by 1 million units in the 3 "slow" Q's currently as pretty hard to justify. The farther into the future the murkier things get, but I think we can comfortably conclude PS3 will not surpass 360 in WW shipments until 2009 at the earliest. Which isn't bad for MS, competing in only 2/3 of territories, more than three years after 360 launched and 2+ years after PS3 launched and nearly til the 2010+ timeframe where we will probably start seeing rumors of the next Xbox.

 And remember this is worldwide., This includes Europe. This includes the USA. This includes Japan. And this includes all the other territories like Korea, Eastern Europe, Taiwan, etc that we really have no idea of. This includes the whole picture.

Yawn. You bore me

I know you dont like the pro-360 spin on things I put so ignore that. But the fact is shipments are a much more accurate source than "sales". 

I think this thread would simply be a better, more precise use of time than that "sales" thread. Nobody really knows what sales are at a given point. But we do get specific and accurate shipment numbers which aren't subject to spin or mystery but stand on their own.

^ really its because i'm just too tired right now. i can't read all of that stuff. and if i did read it i wouldnt be able to understand what all the words put together mean.

take notice to my sleep deprived comments in legends post.

"Sony fanboys actually try to make Europe out to be much bigger and more mysterious than it actually is. For example, in the last generation Sony shipped slightly more PS2's to North America than to all of EU! Shipments can help clarify all that."

I don't think anyone claims Europe to be a bigger market as a whole than the US, but it's clearly the PS3s biggest market. I don't understand why you put an exclamtion mark that PS2 sold slightly more in NA than PAL, NA has always been a larger market than PAL, so this isn't surprising or unexpected. PAL is catching up with NA, though. There really isn't a massive difference in size between the two markets anymore.

I agree that shipments are the most accurate way of measuring worldwide installed base, but it's not too accurate when consoles have first been released. Now that all consoles have been out for 2 (3 in 360s case) holiday seasons excluding PS3 in PAL then I think it's time to take shipments more seriously.

As for when it will pass, I'm not big on predictions, but I'll guess some time in 2009. Not guessing which Quarter, though.

So to sum up: Sony will not ship 7M more Ps3s than Microsoft will ship X360s

OMG what a shock!

And that about Ps2 USA vs EU, nobody claimed Ps2 sold more in EU, it had a higher % in EU than USA.

Look:

Last gen:

Europe:
Ps2: 46M
GC: 4.7M
XB: 7.7M
Total: 58.4M
Ps2 %: 79 %

USA:
PS2: 47.3M
XB: 16M
GC: 12.8M
Total: 76.1M
Ps2 %: 62.2%

As you see, Ps2 had a much larger market share in Europe.

This is a sales site,we can't just forget them. I could ship 200 of console A, and only sell 100, while some one else ships 150 of console B, and sells all 150.

Shipments are not as accurate a measurement as slaes.

^ Wow, PS3 is about to pass the cube in Europe......

Well not to bump this thread, I see this as a good archive type thread when we get quarterly numbers, which the downside is is only once every three months.

But really I did some more thinking about this, and while it seems PS3 cant overtake 360 in 2008, I think a good question is, can it in 2009?

All of 08 and 09 are 8 quarters obviously. Given 360's 7.2 million lead can PS3 average around +1 million per Q to overtake 360 in 09? Knowing of course that in holiday Q's volume is much more..it will be a good test of PS3. That would make it about 3 years after PS3 launched if it's in Q4 09.

wow the GC did realy bad in EU