I was just curious what the sales would look like if we excluded Japan from the comparisons and just looked at things in the western world.

Some interesting points can be made about the sales once you remove Japan:

• The gap between the Xbox 360 and PS3 is 27% which is more inline with the price differential around the world.
• Nintendo and Microsofts sales show a negligable different without Japan, whilst a handheld like the PSP sees much of its success in Japan, the DS/Wii are truely world wide consoles.
• The relative strength of the PSP in Japan should be helping Sony there with the strong Yen making imported components cheaper, whilst Nintendo would be taking more of a hit due to currency fluxuations as their sales are centred outside of Japan, but their much higher profitability is hiding the effects of the strong Yen.

What is negligible about the Wii being double the sales of the 360?

Its as negligable as your high school education?

Its not relative to each other its relative to having Japanese sales included or not in their total.

- the price difference is only 27% ???

- wait, you remove the region where Sony is performing better than MS and u got an increase in the PS360 gap, OMG, it is just unbelievable !!

- my bet is that you are trying to spin the datas cause there is an "only 10k" difference (and an "only 10%" to be complete) in the WW charts despite the Xbox360 being much cheaper than the PS3

- sales difference not price.

- Its relevant because people say the Xbox 360 is performing poorly relative to its price difference, however once you factor out the region which doesn't seem to want to buy the Xbox 360 at any price and look at the relative sales in the other regions where both consoles can sell well it changes the metric.

-ok.

why don't we reverse it and take NA

 well, it changes nothing indeed. Even this improved 27% sales difference is inferior to the price difference

whatever how you look at it, the Xbox360 is performing averagly compared to the PS3

Hopefully for MS, they have the Arcade sku that is saving their ass and will save their ass for Xmas

The Xbox 360 average price is about 33% cheaper than the PS3 in the United States and the sales difference is about the same.

In the United Kingdom going by Wikipedia the average sale price is probably roughly $169 vs $299 for the PS3 and Europe is probably $200 vs $400 for the PS3. The difference here is 'only' 20% in favour of the Xbox 360 however the real price difference is much closer than that as Europe has a higher wireless adoption rate from what I've seen and the Xbox 360 has extra costs associated such as wireless and Live and no Blu Ray so the likely real cost of the systems is probably much closer than the prices indicate.

Lastly, yes the Arcade will save their a$$ for Xmas because the SKU becomes a lot more popular at that time as a gift for children/whatever and cheaper becomes an important point.

Well said Soul, you just owned Squil!