http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/12/17/gw-did-the-ps3-just-outsell-the-360-in-november/

GW: Did the PS3 Just Outsell the 360 in November?

By half a million units?

Gareth C [Gamoc] - Content Manager
Thursday, December 17, 2009 / 11:00

Tags: guest writer, November, Outsell, PS3, Xbox 360

The gloriously named Thomas Pain has given us quite an interesting GW, in which he questions the integrity of the majority of gaming journalism. Obviously, we almost wet our pants in excitement when we got this, so without further ado…

Well, is that true? After all, almost all news outlets were talking about “the unforeseen victory” of Microsoft in November, “the reversal of fortunes” that had happened overnight.

Follow me into this dark rabbit hole, to find out what actually happened.

A quick look at VGCharts LTD data for both consoles shows that since the price drop, Sony has closed down the gap between ps3 & Xbox by about 1 million units. That is, 4 month ago xbox360 was roughly 7 million units ahead, while now it’s 6 millions ahead.

But what’s most striking about these numbers isn’t the success of Sony, rather the failure of gaming journalism at large to report on crucial trends in the market.

In the same month that Sony finished the job it had started in August, NPD November numbers came out in which MS Xbox had outsold PS3 by 100,000. That is in US only.

A simple search on Google News shows about 300 articles covering NPD numbers, many of them with sensationalist headlines describing how Xbox has violently “beaten down”, “finally taken over” & done other naughty stuff to PS3. Good luck finding any report describing Sony closing down on Microsoft.

While US is the largest single market for console gaming, it only accounts for about 47 % of worldwide Market; that is less than half of it!

Now if you think selling US only information as overall worldwide info is outrageous, wait to see this.

In the same month of November, in Europe, PS3 outsold Xbox by a margin of about 215,000. Yep, that’s about twice the margin of victory MS had in America. In Japan, in the same period, PS3 outsold Xbox by about 140,000 units. And the fun ain’t over yet. In November, in terms of units sold in markets outside Europe, America & Japan, PS3 sold about 740,000 units (as much as it sold in US), while Xbox sold 500,000. That again gives Sony a 240,000 margin of victory.

Now, add up all the numbers, and you see that overall, in the month of November, Sony sold about 500,000 more consoles than Microsoft. That’s about… (Sigh)… half a million!

You see, it’s political news all over again; the balloon boy vomiting on screen gets presidential-level news coverage, while hundreds of thousands of boys dying somewhere in Africa barely squeeze themselves in the lower third of our TV screens, miserably crawling from right to left.

This is not a rant about console wars. Xbox & PS3 are both great console & they’re both doing great. Whatever console is set to win this cosmic war is irrelevant here (ironically, wii is gonna beat them both); what’s important is the sad state of affairs in Gaming Journalism when the whole establishment has been reduced to a circle of bloggers, copy/pasting the same articles off their RSS reader, inserting funny jokes here & there. All the while, the crucial trends gather dust in accessible statistics & available reports, waiting for someone to find them.

But perhaps, there’s no reason to get angry for. Only next time around, when you saw the word “analyst” being tossed around in the room, pause for a moment… and remember, that those guys in “the other side”, in that magazine, or website, are in no way more qualified to tell you what’s going on in the gaming world…than you. It’s sad, but true.

So true!!!

article points out a lot of obvious/pointless things D:

i mean, most people who follow these thing knew of all this... the press always follows the surprise story though. thats what people read. thats what gets views lol...

which was... many didn't expect 360 to outsell the ps3 during the holiday season (at least here in the u.s.). while the u.s.=/= world, it is one of the largest markets for the industry... so it is a big story.

while im not really a fan of the gaming press, this does seems like a cheap/"fanboyism fuled" shot at them. i mean, how amazing... u.s. press reports on u.s. sales. salacious titles for clicks? REALLY? xD

man fix this plz

Hooray! SOMEBODY outside VGC realises that US =/= World!

Similar to "Uncharted 2 only selling 600k units".

I agree 100%

Ahh, glad people understand Worldwide > U.S.

Microsoft treats the U.S as the World too much.

Because there is an absolute dearth of Sony fan and media support on the web?

Come on. Sony is doing great since the Slim release, are people really so touchy that if it isn't screamed from the mountains at every possible moment, then something must be wrong?

For the record, I've read no articles anywhere that have suggested that the US = the world or that the 360 is beating the PS3 in worldwide sales anywhere. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places?

You know Microsoft only responding to NPD, I don't remember them ever treating US as the world.

There are plenty of articles with the title "360 outsells PS3 in November". Which is clearly not the case.

Software is even worse. Pachter complained about "Uncharted 2 only selling 650k in the US", while ignoring the 1.5 million sales it's gotten in the rest of the world. But then the rest of the world is just full of commies and dragons.

So Pacther wants better sales in America for a fantastic game, and that is bad?  Or NPD makes statements about NPD sales (only covering America) and somehow that means we think America = the world?

If we're joking about world maps, I prefer this one: http://pw0nd.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/america-500x344.jpg

If you're serious...well I won't go there.