Sony released their Australian numbers and the most shocking surprise came from how much of the userbase were given free PS3's - 70,000 units or 15%.

Read more below, click on link for full article!

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6204161.html

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia's silence has finally broken, with figures released today showing the company sold 213,000 PlayStation 3's last year, with a total down under install-base now of 460,000 units, according to industry trackers GfK Australia

Not all of the 460,000 PS3s were sold, however, with the total install-base figure including 70,000 PS3s that Sony gave away during its Bravia LCD promotion.

Does it matter if they got a discount on their TV when they bought a PS3?

well vg chartz have undertracke Ps3 by 30K there

UNLESS these figures are shipped which they probably are

Wow - that promotion has done pretty damn well. Getting their TVs and PS3s into the living rooms of 70,000 more households. Hopefully these owners are enjoying their systems.

@ Flash: I'm not exactly sure how the promotion did well based on the fact they gave away 70,000 consoles.. They were always gonna give away that amount it was a first come first serve thing up to 35,000 for each promotion.

Vgchartz appears to have 360 overtracked by about 80k here but again its most likely shipment vs actual announced company sales figures.

Thats alot, 15%. What's the average extra cost of a Sony brand tv verses LG or Panasonic? When i got my Sony CRT it was about 500 (20%) more expensive than the panasonic equivalent.

I don't know about Australia but when they had this "promotion" in Sony Centres in Poland price of Bravia with "free" PS3 was similar to price of same Bravia + PS3 sold separatly in independant online shops.

Of course considering how much thread opener loves his X360 he missed few other interesting tidbits from article

While PS3 wasn't the victor in hardware sales, the three current PlayStation platforms (PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable) managed to have an impressive year in software sales. In total, 42 per cent of all software sold during 2008 was on one of the three PS consoles.

Consistent with last year’s boom in the "family games" category, the SingStar franchise saw a 47 per cent increase in sales, with the latest game in the franchise--SingStar ABBA--selling 92,000 units in the six weeks leading up to Christmas across the PS2 and PS3.

While the focus of today's announcement was primarily on the PS3, Sony also updated its figures for the PS2 and PSP. Over its nine years of sales, the PS2 still holds strong to its title of best-selling console down under, boasting 2.4 million consoles in Australian households. The PSP, on the other hand, has sold just over half a million.

I believe both (or all 3?) Australian promotions it was actually a free PS3.... although the same TV now is likely cheaper than it was back then.

# of PS family consoles/Handeld in Australia - 3.3 Million

# of Competing consoles/Handelds in Australia - 3.9 Million

% of PS console in Australia - 46%

Meaning that even with 46% of the consoles in Australia, Sony was only able to sell 42% of the software..

Thanks for those extra tidbits, I guess it just reconfirms the low attachement rates troubling the Playstation consoles/handhelds...

Edit: Numbers changed from 49% to 46% for the % of Sony consoles/handheld

Does it matter that it gave away 70k PS3s? If I'm not mistaken, didn't Bill Gates give away a ton of Xbox and 360s for free?