"<Sony America boss Jack Tretton believes 2008 will be a "breakthrough year for the PS3".

He was speaking in the aftermath of Toshiba announcing it would withdraw its HD-DVD format from the market, and so pave the way for Blu-ray to shine.

"The emergence of Blu-ray as the de facto high definition standard is one more reason why PS3 is a great value to consumers," said Tretton in a statement.

"The combination of strong sales, Blu-ray dominance and widely-anticipated games all point to 2008 as a breakthrough year for PS3."

According to reports from the Toshiba press conference, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive accounted for a third of all HD-DVD player sales in the US.

Overall, the US sold 900,000 HD-DVD players, Europe sold 100,000, and Japan sold 30,000 (10,000 players, 20,000 recorders). That brings the worldwide total to 1,030,000 HD-DVD players sold.

The PlayStation 3 and its built-in Blu-ray drive has sold more than 10 million units worldwide.

Analysts also predict that Toshiba's decision will be an enormous boon to Sony and the PS3 going forward, as retailers try to push Blu-ray on those buying HD tellies.>"

Source: Eurogamer.net

That's not really saying much. I would have liked something, well, saying much.

Saying you're looking forward is not really telling us what comes next. I know they have stuff to work out, but this was as good a time as any to tell us what they have planned to push blu-ray.

"Sony America boss Jack Tretton believes 2008 will be a "breakthrough year for the PS3".

That statement is on the cautious side and allows them to say 'this is the kind of sales we were expecting' whatever the sales actually are at the end of the year.

He's not making any bold claims about PS3 sales so it's clear they are still unsure whether PS3 can threaten Xbox360 or Wii this year.

Unexpected ... no . It was logical that sooner or later the PS3 will go ahead of the 360 , the question was when . The end of the format war only braught that time closer ...

The logic of the PS2 beating the Xbox is not a good pattern. Sure the PS3 is selling better in others and Japan, but those were made clear by market research, not by simply assuming patterns repeat themselves.