I suspect that Sony expected that it would lose market share this holiday season to both Nintendo and Microsoft. However I also suspect that Sony probably did not expect to lose so much market share. This will not be the first time that Sony has had the PS3 dance close to dangerous margins, but with over two years on the market retailer patience is probably already quite thin.

According to this weeks data the PS3 is standing at just over 17% of the North American next gen console market. This week the console accounted for just over 13% of next gen console sales. The sobering realization is that Sony once more is going to plumb the limits of tolerable margin. Once again they are going to test the tolerance of retailers. Frankly it is like playing with fire, and they are right if you play with fire eventually you will get burned.

This will not be the first time this generation that Sony has tread these particular shores, but they always seem to recover towards safer margins before the hammer can fall, but if you tempt fate often enough. Fate does have a way of delivering a death blow, and it looks as if Sony is going to push it even farther this time around. Getting to within a few weeks of discontinuance if you believe the rumor that is.

Were I a PS3 owner I would be deeply concerned, because this strategy leaves Sony at the mercy of their rivals. Who can attack at the weakest moment. Sure the price cut may help the PS3, but what if Microsoft or Nintendo drop two or three blockbuster titles at that exact same point. The PS3 price cut may get lost in the excitement about those titles, and that could be the few weeks needed to cast the die for retailers.

''Look at all that (green) juice''.

Mighty beast 360 rising. Impressive. Good numbers overall! And the unlucky one, was there.

Too long to read thru all of these posts, so it might have been already said, but with Japan sales, Wii will hit 39M for the week.

So they use a medium like television, where 99% of those watching don't own a PS3, to speak to the existing owner and keep interest in their product? Wouldn't it make more sense, if your objective is to not sell hardware, but software and movies, to advertise heavily in mediums where existing owners would be the only or atleast dominant audience? They might accidently entice new buyers with their TV ads. Uh oh, we don't want that

Don't worry, according to Spankey it is all part of the master plan. It may look dire, but Sony doesn't want more market share, really...

Oh please. is your attention span so short that you've forgotten my first post you replied to?

You're calling Sony the PS3 and completely ignoring the PSP and PS2.

Why do you think they removed B/C from the PS3? so they could have a PS2 hardware/software buffer for these couple of fiscal quarters. PS2 makes more money from hardware than the PS3 does. You might find the PSP does as well.

Sony cannot be viewed as the PS3 alone.

They are probably more concerned about profit for the division than market share in this stage of the PS3 life cycle.

This does not mean they are not concerned about market share or they would have stopped advertising the PS3 hardware (as you pointed out) and dropped the price of the PS3.

If they did that, Sony would more than likely suffer disinvestment at some major level.

This is a long term game.

Sony would be in big trouble financially if not for PS2 and PSP. A PS3 price drop would probably hurt them more then help them, even in March.

Yep. It is price drops that lead big sales, not big games.

Wii is only 2.78 million away from reaching 50% of the market, it's possible, depending on how many Wii's nintendo has stockpiled for the holidays

Indian people: GASP!