"The significant point is that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, despite there being no WMDs."


Take apart my analogy, I dare you.

 If the aim of the war was to take down Saddam and not to find the WMDs then that argument would work. The aim of the PS3 is to sell, regardless of 360 shortages or whatever, that's not Sony's business...

Parokki, it isn't much of a feat Sony claiming that the PS3 sold faster in Europe than the PS1, PS2, Wii, and 360. The PS3 had the largest shipment allotted (1 million) and serious hype following the most successful home console(PS2) in gaming history. The PS2 had shortages in EVERY REGION when it was launched, much like the Wii. The 360 only shipped 300,000 in its launch window to Europe.

I simply can't resist.

The 360 actually got to 1m in March 2006, which is more than a year before the PS3 crossed the line, according to one of your links, and is currently selling at a higher rate than is the PS3. I've never understood the point of these 'same time from launch' comparisons.

 It's a way of comparing when consoles launch at such a great time difference between each other.

The numbers are close enough to VGChartz figures to make it more than possible. Its not like its off by 20% of something. Shipped figures would be MUCH higher, maybe 2-3x as high.

Re: beating the 360 to that milestone, I think we all know its meaningless. What matters is happens FROM now - the 360 has a considerable lead in Europe at the moment.

This shows that for Sony, ANY good news (or spin) will be published. 

But how is it at all enlightening? Anyone who looks at the charts can see that the reason that the PS3 is at 1m so soon is that it got an absurdly large launch spike, and that sales have now settled down significantly.

It's total sales and long-term sales rates that we ought to be interested in - it's far more informative to say that the 360 has about three times the install base and is selling faster than it is to say that the PS3 got to 1m more quickly after launch, especially when it's obvious that it beat the 360 largely because of shortages, which have no real effect on long-term sales.

 Wrong!

Saddam Hussein, like the million sold, is an easy "fact" to point to in order to take attention away from gloom and doom.  Fact is, getting Hussein out required us to devote a huge portion of our military to a basically lost cause.  The fact is, Sony has 1 million in Europe within 3 months because they delayed their launch, basically shooting themselves in the foot for a single decent headline.

The issue here is that Sony probably isn't going to reach 2 million in PAL until well after 360 did, even with launches aligned, and so they're milking this story while they can.  Sort of a reverse-FUD, but just as shady and contemptable.

I don't think anyone would deny the only reason Sony got to a million so fast was because they delayed launch to gather stock... but can anyone provide me with numbers how long it took the other two consoles to read septule digits?

 I said if the point was to take Saddam out the argument would work....