Have to say i agree. Going into the most busiest time of the year being down and down a lot does not bode well. It is ok to sell more in times where sales are not so high i.e January to July but the end of the year is the big sales. Look at the 360 was pretty much neck and neck with PS3 from January to March. Then April to July PS3 did better because of the changes to the console and the release of a big game, but after that it was 50-50. So people moan about the 360 price cut but if you look at the figures from 1st of July to 13th September (1 week before the 360 price cut) You see that for those 3 months the PS3 sold 1.6m Worldwide and the 360 sold 1.5m worldwide. That is just a 100k gap in 3 months for the PS3.

So that shows the PS3 sales were faultering long before the 360 price cut. Because if you then take the next 3 months Sept 13th to nov 13th you get PS3 again on 1.6m worldwide and 360 at 2.2m worldwide. That 100k gap in the past 3 months prior to that period for PS3 was replaced by a 600k gap in the following 3 months by the 360. That is some pretty nasty facts for Sony there. Then in the following 2 months (nov to today) the PS3 sold 1.1m worldwide and the 360 sold 2.2m worldwide again. But that is with 6 weeks to spare. Meaning the gap in the period for the final 3 months of the year when said and sone will increase a lot. If it sells another 2.2m in the next 3 weeks (final 3 totals of dec) would mean the 360 outsold the PS3 by over 4m units in the final 6 months of the year. That is a gigantic figure. That is 25% of TOTAL PS3 sales. And those numbers will remain high into the start of 09.

So Sony will have it all to do and as much as Sony are up over last year the actual trend shows that the PS3 probably has now peaked.

30 billion in debt is pretty low for a company the size of Sony.  For example, Charter communications, a St. Louis based cable company, has more than $20 billion in debt and it has 1/10th as many employees as Sony.

Look, I don't want to be negative, but this is pretty unprecedented. I can't think of any successful platform that saw sales decrease from Year 2 to Year 3 during the holidays, and then went on to see a strong rebound afterwards. PS3 should be gaining momentum and hitting its stride right now; the fact that sales were down 20% for November 2008 compared to November 07 (in America) is pretty disastrous. I looked at Japan, and sales are way down there as well year on year, although pretty much everything is down for 2008 in Japan.

If PS3 sales are falling year on year in 2 out of the 3 major markets... well, I can't see this ending well for Sony. I don't think they can siphon even more money away from the other divisions in order to save the PS3. How many billions of dollars is the PS3 supposed to get before it stands on its own feet? Once the mindshare of a product starts to slip, it's almost impossible to recover.

PS3 might turn out OK in Europe, but I think it's finished in America. I don't think it will ever capture more than 15-20% of the market here.

Nintendo has almost never posted a loss in a quarter since it's creation in the 1800's. Do your research...

GC sold poorly, made a profit. PS3 sells ok, lost 12 years worth of profit.

OT: I think the PSP is the best example of a (handheld) console having a downward trend and then picking up. Though it has never been the "winner", it has bucked the trend.   

No other console has had the power of teh cell backing it up. The PS3 will be fine.

 Fixed

Lol!

The PS3 hasn't peaked yet, once the economy get's better (hopefully in 2009) and they release all them AAA games for 09 and get the price cut, then I can imagine it'll do much better then 2008.

Two things. 1. Please explain how sony can afford a price cut. It's easy to explain how much they need one. But they can't afford one.

2. The PS3 HAS lots of AAA games, this has not helped the PS3 at all. PS3 NEEDS games for everybody. Having only AAA games is only going to bury Sony even deeper. Appealing only to the elite and hardcore is a part of how Sony has toppled it's own empire. Sony forgot who bought a PSX & PS2. http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=52464&page=1 

The 360 has focused on both the hardcore and family fare in 2008, and this has paid off in a big way. Sony desperately needs the diversity of the software lineup of it's two successful and profitable consoles. 

I just have two things to say to the op.

1. Your an idiot.
2. Its one month. One month a downward trend does not make. I hope you enjoy your time in the sun being a fanboy.

YOY its up, all it needs is a price cut and it will be fine. Even if it is 3rd place this gen its doing better than any other 2nd place console and as a PS3 owner i fell very happy that i have an awesome machine that is well supported.