Just have a look at the recent Hardware sales for the 'Other' region.

Even though 360 will likely crush it in World Wide sales for that week (no need to mention Wii, everyone knows it's king) it's nice to see Europe embrasing the PS3 as much as it is.

Japan will only add another pathetic 10k-15k, and USA will add not to much more than that, looking at last weeks sales.

360 beat PS3 in USA by over 100k in last weeks chart, so it's not even nearly enough for PS3 to keep it's head above water even with the Japanese and Europe numbers.

But!!!.. Is it enough to keep PS3 a success?
For example if the European numbers showed PS3 in dead last, it'd basically spell doom for PS3.

Depends on your definition of 'Success' I guess.  - Like if PS3 will even become profitable enough to make up for initial losses.

First we have to see how these numbers hold over time. Price cuts tend to cause a spike and then sales fade down to some steady number. Depending on what that holding point is, will matter a lot. I'm certainly it'll be selling better than 360, but by how much?

Between Europe and Japan, my guess is it'll keep the PS3 in the game and close to 360's sales.

Problem is, if 360 owns NA, and PS3 owns Europe/Japan then neither will ever be able to put up a real challenge to Wii. They'll just battle it out for a very distant 2nd/3rd finish.

I don't know if Europe will be enough but one thing's for sure with a more affordable SKU I don't see this trend of sales ending anytime soon here.

As for Japan I would wait for the 40Go to be introduced 40,000 Y it's a more acceptable price range for many japanese people.

US wise Sony will primarily push the 40Go as a BR player so sales might pick up a litlle these next weeks. All in all I think the PS3 will do good this holiday season. So we might just want to wait a little before acting as doom-mongers.

Europe won't save Sony. While Europe is a growing market and certainly important, most games developed for Europe start in America.

Right now Sony only holds 20% of the European Nexgen Market as opposed to roughly 40% for the 360. Even Sony has a gangbuster holiday season moving more then 100,000 Consoles a week for the next few months, they will still have a hard time pulling even with the 360 and thus won't play much of a role at all in game development.

Long term if Sony can obtain a substansial lead on the 360 at least %50 more consoles perhaps 8 Million overall in Others next year, it'll be a factor, but doubftul.

Overall Sony needs to excel in North America if they want to win this war, and right now with just 35% of the HiDef gaming market they are in a tough position. Third Party game developers will have a hard time justifying exclusive development on the PS3 come next year.

I don't know if Europe can save the PS3. It seems like there is a need to excel in NA or Japan, since that is where most of the development and money is locked up in. I would say the PS3 would need to pull away far ahead of the 360 there before it can be seen as a saving grace. And it needs to start selling better in America. Japan is pretty much a lost cause for both.

PES08 just launched here in Europe and that's huge here and even though it's on XBox360 as well, everyone buys a PS3 for it. It will seriously boost PS3 sales for a couple or so weeks. At most until SMG launches.

Total
DS 177,772
Wii 111,300
PS3 73,614
PSP 51,757
Xbox360 38,212

My point :

Since we dont know WHICH console people are buying it is hard to say anything.
The 60gb should be very very close to be sold out but surprisingly there is still very high sales in PAL : why ?
- brandname : Sony is big in PAL an people are buying the console they wanted to buy since the day 1.
- BC not matter when you save 200euros ?
- Ratchet : the best rated game for the moment, not a new IP
- PES2008 : very popular football game (even if 2008 is a bad version)

The 40gb model was not introduced to boost the sales DIRECTLY since there was no news games released at the same time than the 40gb model.

The 40gb model was introduced to improve the sales for each new game released : ratchet, PES2008, Assassin Creed, CoD4 (it will be huge on all plateform), Unchartred etc ...

^ It's tragic that people actually but the ps3 for it, the version is technically glitchier than the xbox version. I guess it's a matter of being used to having the PES series on the PS.

xbox 360/PS3 sales are usually even in europe, the only reason the PS3 sold twice the number of xbox360's is because of the introduction of the 40gb version , and the price cut on the 60gb version, in fact the 360 would sometimes sell more than PS3 weekly

1.  Playstation is big in Europe, not Sony.
2.  Most people don't even know what this is (again in EU)
3.  Ratchet is not released in Europe yet.
4.  PES08 is one of the best in series. See IGN review...