....

The sad part is that even though the PS3 is now $400, well within the X360 price, sales increased *only* 60% - still almost 70k units under what the X360 does.

Selective memory is a wonderful thing to have I suppose, or is ignorance bliss. The reality is far from the picture painted in the other regions. Sony has only held that position with the PS3 for three weeks. During which time the 360s sales have dropped by nineteen percent while the PS3s sales have dropped by thirty two percent. Prior to that the 360 held a lead for seven weeks. So Microsoft has won seven of the last ten weeks. Which is an advantage of two months to one.

You need to wait for Sony to bleed off the spike before you can make a reasonable judgment. The 360 once again has seen consistent sales. Meanwhile the PS3 sales are unstable. You need to see where the beast levels off this time. We have a good idea where the 360 is going to stay. We have no idea where the PS3 will be in a month. You have fence sitters, and bargain hunters pumping up the sales for the moment, but history has shown those do not last long for the brand.

What is quite obvious from the sales tracking is neither of these consoles are very dominant over the other. With a slight advantage going to the 360, but that can be a margin of error. Anyway the point is the PS3 is not dominant in other regions. What it is happens to be competitive for the second place position.

Another thing is that North America is the most relevant market to Sony. Their home market it dominated by Nintendo on two fronts, and it is their worst market. Even if they are not the worst in that market. North America however comprises over forty percent of their market. So those three to one margins that Microsoft has really do matter. Further more PS3 software sales in North America are much stronger then the software sales in Japan.

Things could get better it depends on whether Sony spikes yet again. However the situation right now is not altogether good. Microsoft looks like it will beat Sony yet again this week, and if the sales drop significantly in the others regions next week it might just end up being a case of closest approach. What Sony needs is for their sales to stabilize for a long period. Further more in certain markets they need to develop some sales ratio with the Wii.

Anyway given what history has taught us the PS3s sales are erratic at best. Spending a few weeks on top of the world in some region, and then sliding right back into mediocrity. While the 360 sales adopt a horizontal approach, and the Wii adopts a very high horizontal approach. When you factor in spiking if the net gain is below the horizontal line of the others it is no better then selling at a lower but steady rate.

The PS3 has pulled this same routine to many times in the past to be getting overly optimistic. I will say this if the PS3 does it yet again sell high for a few weeks then plummets back under the 360 then it is time to start getting worried about the consoles future, because apparently the machine will see soft demand regardless of price. I cannot see Sony being able to eat any more losses, and more importantly the other two can start matching at a much smaller loss.

 the $400 system isnt released until tomorrow And the big daddys (no pun intended) Best Buy and Circuit City didnt release ratchet until this week. So maybe we will se a nice spike or at least a steady hold for next week too.

dodece for the win!

He hit the nail on the head.

A good increase might mean nothing in the face of it just being a spike, if it is. Remember when Sony had that wonderful $100 pricedrop on the 20/60gb models? Remember how well it sold in August? It was great. Till the September numbers came out and we found out that the PS3 was worse off than it was before the drop (or near it).

It *seems* that in Europe, the drop might have a better, more permanant effect. Nevertheless, what matters if it trends well: the X360, since August has trended much, much, much, infinitely better in the US/PAL. The X360 was selling 40k/wk for many weeks. It's been above 70k for more than 2 months, and is now supposedly even double the 70k ammount, and hasn't seen significant drops since Halo 3. Likewise, although more tepid, the European/Other markets are still 100% above what it was before the Elite launched (in which, the X360 was selling roughly 19,000 units/wk in all of those territories).

So what happens now? Is it a spike, or trend. The issue is Sony doesn't have great software like the Xbox 360 to fully utilize the pricedrop. Maybe consumers will latch on, seeing the titles coming up. Maybe they won't.

Wait until November comes around. If the PS3 can get a 150% week-over-week boost in every region in Nov/Dec, it's obvious it helped. Or it could DreamCast, and only increase barely, and just fail in every region.

@choirsoftheeye

well you are correct, wii is clearly the overall leader in the console wars.

Although it brings up a nice point, that only Sony is selling two home consoles, ps2 and ps3. Whereas Nintendo GameCube, is not selling in any great numbers, and original xbox is discontinued. The line in the sand of 'next generation' isn't really fair, when that line in the sand is only hurting Sony's appearances.

My line in the sand, was...strange as it may seem, players in the HD content wars, with Microsoft on the HD camp and Sony in BluRay...so for me, comparing Xbox 360 and PS3 was natural...even if 360 only has HD as an add on.

What the dude? I agree completely with Dodece. We have to wait for PS3 sales to stabilize before we judge console sales.

Also, nice way to use percentages instead of raw numbers. That's how you attract readers!

@Mark - that's a fair point, though the focus really needs to be on "next-gen" (current-gen) systems, because I do anticipate that this is the PS2's last big year. I could be mistaken, but I expect sales of the PS2 to plummet in '08, just because there really aren't going to be any big games for it anymore.

The increase in sales this week was very nice considering that the forty gig wasn't counted on that (America), next week's sales numbers won't really reflect it because it's coming out mid week but next-next weeks sales will tell the tale of how well the forty gig is selling. I think sony can manage to push units before the Christmas is up to make sure games like GT5, Killzone 2, and MGS 4 move many units.

....But how are you going to push more hardware when you only have one decently major exclusive for the rest of the year? Expecially when your most recent IPs have all tanked beyond belief, and the Multi-plats are just as comparible on the X360.

First of all, it's "especially" not "expecially", but umm... yeah, I'm saying that the price drop will help move hardware before these games come out (As you can already see), I don't think that their IP's have tanked beyond belief. HS is at 250,000 and Lair and Warhawk are close to 150,000 units so I don't believe that they tanked... So I don't see the point you're trying to make in your post.