Being on a roll implies continued success... a one week success and a good start does not really qualify.

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What we have to realise that Sony is finally listening and fixing the issues with PS3. They have made their advertisements a lot better. They are trying to get new exclusives like LBP, ModNation, Agent etc and they are improving the online.. We have to acknowledge that they have made great progress and above all they decreased the price considerably earlier than analyst believed and more than the analyst thought. Everybody was thinking of a pricecut of $50 around October.

It really just illustrates the demand for a $299 PS3.

Releasing a revised hardware unit at a greatly reduced manufacturing cost simply facilitated the price drop, which SCE had the foresight to pass on to consumers (foresight really meaning the obvious decision).

But the $299 price is more significant as the market for $299 consoles is larger than the market for $399 consoles. Many consumers won't pay over $300 for a console. Many others won't pay over $200. Not sure why some still fail to acknowledge this.

And for those who still believe price doesn't matter, which is the equivalent of saying a general consumer will purchase a game console regardless of whether it costs $99 or $599, one really has to question whether they've bothered to follow sales trends of consoles over the past ten years as each generation matures.

As for the ever important sustained rate of sales, the other early key detractor (other than price), mainly the software library, has fully been addressed looking at a solid back catalog of about three years' worth of games with plenty more compelling titles queued up.

I'm already noticing a fair amount of previously vehemently anti-PS3 opinions doing a 180 flip, tied largely to the $100 price drop, with others using the new packaging as the reason why it is now kosher for them to buy a PS3.

But $100 is all it takes to turn many an opinion when it comes to consoles.

greenmedic88 I think it's far too early to make any conclusions about the demand for a $299 PS3. For all we know, a large part of this week's demand may be due to PS3 owners switching their PS3 for a Slim.

Something similar happens when new colors are introduced. It's not very likely that someone decides to suddenly buy a console they didn't have just because it got a new color, rather we see the effect of hardcore fans selling (or giving away) their used consoles and buying the newest models.

Obviously a part of the high demand is due to the price cut itself, but as I said it's far too early to make any conclusions about that. Considering how low PS3 sales have been in the past few months, delayed demand explains a lot of the spike.

All of this brings me back to my initial reaction, which was that we'll know the lasting effect of the price cut by the end of this year, or early next year. Until then there are too many things confusing the picture.

God of War III will certainly be a system seller in North America.  The first God of War sold 2.48 million in NA, and the sequel sold 1.79 million despite having released well after all three next gen consoles.  For comparison, Metal Gear Solid 2 only sold 2.29 million in NA, and Metal Gear Solid 3 only managed 1.42 million.

MGS4 currently sits at 1.76 million in North America, and it managed to spike the ps3's sales up 212% to 159k the week of its release. God of War III will surely do something similar, if not a bit better.

Elsewhere, however, God of War will pass with barely a whipser.

The same suspicious/mysterious pattern happened in 2007 when the price dropped to $399, only to a lesser extent. What we saw not long after the initial peak in sales was a sustained increase in weekly sales at that price point as well as larger holiday season totals, which may well be attributed to the strong 2007 holiday line up of titles, but also sustained YoY increased sales continued through 2008 right until almost exactly when MS dropped the prices of their consoles across the entire line up. In 2009, MS has seen a similar sustained increase in YoY sales over 2008. Coincidence? Your call.

And there are no instances of new colors moving over 500k units from the previous week of under 100k. But yes, the sales building up to the slim release were heavily influenced by diminishing stock and orders more than any rumors about an imminent product redesign. The average consumer only knew about the slim when they saw the TV ads and the product on shelves with a new price.

Sustained 2010 sales for the PS3 should provide the best information as to where the demand for a $299 PS3 lies. If it's higher than 2007 and 2008 levels, interpret it as you will, but that would seem to indicate that there are more people buying $299 consoles than $399 consoles.

Sales could definitely be higher (also depending on how the economy evolves), my point was just that we still don't have any idea about how much higher. Could be 10% higher or 30% or even more, still too much uncertainty.

Without bothering to break down the weekly average percent increase from about November 2007 to just prior to November 2008 (I forget which week MS dropped prices), I would take that percentage increase as the starting point and move from there.

So if the weekly percent increse was hypothetically in the 10-20% range due to multiple factors in Q4 2007 to Q4 2008, including the $399 price point, it's not unreasonable to expect to see similar or higher average weekly increases in 2010 due to multiple factors including the $299 price point. Off hand, I'm going to say higher without throwing out any specific numbers.

Wow I didn't even think God Of War was such a big franchise in NA. I guess Sony is going to be covered for a while still. Is it possible we see the Xbox 360 lead go from 8M-> 4/5M?

EDIT: 4/5M this year?