Look up the threads and articles about the ps3 being discontinued due to low sales. When the ps3 launched and the shortages ended, the doom was overwhelming. You might not have noticed if, perhaps, you were not a ps fan, but it was real. Even friends of mine who weren't anything close to gamers were telling all about how terriblly the ps3 was doing in 2008.

The sales are not awful to me, but they were bad considering how much better the wii and xb360 were doing and the sales of ps2 (as opposed to gamecube and xbox). They were bad since Sony expected much more from the console and they had to cut the price several times to the point of the company bleeding tons of money. You don't cut the price so soon if the sales are actually good. Neither Sony nor the gaming community saw the sales as good, so no they weren't good.

Look up the threads and articles about the ps3 being discontinued due to low sales. When the ps3 launched and the shortages ended, the doom was overwhelming. You might not have noticed if, perhaps, you were not a ps fan, but it was real. Even friends of mine who weren't anything close to gamers were telling all about how terriblly the ps3 was doing in 2008.

The sales are not awful to me, but they were bad considering how much better the wii and xb360 were doing and the sales of ps2 (as opposed to gamecube and xbox). They were bad since Sony expected much more from the console and they had to cut the price several times to the point of the company bleeding tons of money. You don't cut the price so soon if the sales are actually good. Neither Sony nor the gaming community saw the sales as good, so no they weren't good.

This was mostly the conjecture PS2 fanboys-turned-360 fanboys trying to make themselves feel better about not a having a PS3 for whatever reason (mostly the overwhelming pricing from 2006-2009). I don't know if we can say the bad publicity was as drastic, nor am I saying they were wrong to not a have a PS3 at the time (although I bet they would never have given the 360 any consideration had the PS3 and 360 been evenly-priced simultaneously from the get go) but the propanganda in context wasn't any different from those who went NES-to-Genesis instead of NES-to-SNES when Nintendo's marketing failed to justify the pricepoint of the SNES early on.

And...?

It has outsold it so far. It's the fastest selling console ever released vs. the highest selling console ever. It's a valid comparison.

Though I do agree with this, I still think that the sales were bad, because Sony thought so. The early price cut is a clear sign of that. People can debate all they want, but at the end of the day Sony is a company that invests money on their products. If they are not happy, it means that they are not being successful, which they weren't with the ps3. So I stand by my point. The ps3 did not do well. The 3ds isn't doing great either, but it's doing considerably better.