U.S. PS3 sales triple

[Captain Trips]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183389.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;4

Sales of the PlayStation 3 in North America were given a shot in the arm last week by the price cut, and more than tripled during the Thanksgiving holiday week, reports Bloomberg.

The financial news service received an email from Sony spokesperson Kimberly Otzman, who told it that there had been a 245 percent increase in the number of PS3 units sold in the week November 18 to 24 compared to the previous week, although she declined to reveal the actual number.

Otzman believes that the surge in sales is largely due to the price cut, which was introduced in the US on October 18 for the 60GB model, and the new 40GB model, which was released on November 2. The new prices put the console more in line with the Wii and Xbox 360. The 80GB PS3 costs $499, and the 40GB $399, compared to $249 for a Wii, and $280 for the Xbox Arcade.


First the PS3 outsells the Wii in Japan. Now PS3 sales in the U.S. triple. Is there no stopping this juggernaut of a console?

Ok, I'm obviously teasing. But this is a good sign for the PS3. The price point was a huuuuuuge issue for the majority of consumers. A coworker of mine just bought a 40GB PS3 yesterday. He was waiting for the price to drop as well. I really do think the PS3 is a high quality system, and I'm glad to see it doing better with consumers.

[nervmeister]

Woah. Looks like it isn't just a spike after all.

[Gladiaria_Alata]

I'm still waiting for the backwards compatible ones to go down here.

Very cynically though.

[Nate Grey]

First the PS3 outsells the Wii in Japan

Is Japan experiencing the same shortage of Wiis as America? If so, that MAY be a factor.

[Thorlief]

early reports from NPD and anectodal evidence say Wii is probably going to surpass one million in NA in November, with 360 coming close to 700k

still a good number for PS3, even though we should see how that 300% translates into actual numbers

I will open a NPD thread as soon as the numbers are out

[EmeraldOutlaw]

The price point was a huuuuuuge issue for the majority of consumers. A coworker of mine just bought a 40GB PS3 yesterday. He was waiting for the price to drop as well. I really do think the PS3 is a high quality system, and I'm glad to see it doing better with consumers.

The price was the big issue I had with it, as did a number of people I've spoken to. However, (to further beat a dead horse) if they want sales to continue like this they're going to need a few more outstanding exclusive titles.

[Jared_Humpherys]

Good for Sony. I want the market to remain as competitive as possible.

[Fatguy]

I want to see Sony crumble under the weight of its own arrogance!!!!!

Just kidding. Mostly..................

[Renzo]

I have no reason to buy a PS3 until MGS4 comes out and even then I may just say screw it. Not making their "cheaper" PS3s backwards compatible...gimme a break.

[Black Atom]

Woah. Looks like it isn't just a spike after all.

It's not like that can be attributed to Thanksgiving weekend being the biggest shopping time of the year, or anything. I'm willing to bet the sales on all gaming hardware saw a boost last week. Not that I'm taking anything away from the PS3--the price cut was a solid move and is definitely going to help them out this holiday season.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

The price was the big issue I had with it, as did a number of people I've spoken to. However, (to further beat a dead horse) if they want sales to continue like this they're going to need a few more outstanding exclusive titles.co-sign....

[Captain Trips]

Is Japan experiencing the same shortage of Wiis as America? If so, that MAY be a factor.

It is. I was saying all of that very tongue in cheek. I have a PS3 and a Wii. Obviously I want them both to be great and have great games.

[Chiasm]

Imagine that. Sales of a game console went up during the period that includes Black Friday.:rolleyes: I think its impossible to say if the price cut had anything to do with it or not.

[nervmeister]

All they have to do now is bring backward compatability to the 40GB version, add in a few new suprises, and sell it for the same $399 price.

[BlairH]

Good!

The PS3 finally has a couple of decent exclusives in Ratchet and Clank and Uncharted, and the price isn't as insane as it once was.

[nervmeister]

OMFG! Blair H is back! Welcome back, Blair! I missed you sooooooooo much!

[Nosgoth Phantom]

Is Japan experiencing the same shortage of Wiis as America? If so, that MAY be a factor.

No, they are not. You can go on the Japanese Amazon website right now and they are in stock.

[Lester C.]

Given the fact that sales were mostly flatline I think any sales increase is going to seem astronomical from the months before.

[Gilda Dent]

Good for Sony. I want the market to remain as competitive as possible.

Yep. Also good for the Blu-Ray side of the HD format war.

Multiple competing platforms is good for video games, but bad for the home video market.

[jesse_custer]

It's not like that can be attributed to Thanksgiving weekend being the biggest shopping time of the year, or anything. I'm willing to bet the sales on all gaming hardware saw a boost last week. Not that I'm taking anything away from the PS3--the price cut was a solid move and is definitely going to help them out this holiday season.

You're right. A Nintendo geek friend of mine told me that the Wii sold 350,000 in one week recently.

[cactusmaac]

Yep. Also good for the Blu-Ray side of the HD format war.

Multiple competing platforms is good for video games, but bad for the home video market.

I doubt it'll make much difference. HD player sales are tiny compared to regular ones and physical disc formats will probably be obsolete in five to ten years.

[Agent Helix]

I doubt it'll make much difference. HD player sales are tiny compared to regular ones and physical disc formats will probably be obsolete in five to ten years.

Agreed. The current format war is largely artificial, spurred on primarily by sagging DVD sales (sales which were "sagging" simply because most everybody already re-bought the movies they had on VHS, and now simply buy new releases). Digital distribution is the REAL future format, and both Blu-Ray and HDDVD are likely to go the way of laserdiscs as a mass media program.

[The Fury]

All they have to do now is bring backward compatability to the 40GB version, add in a few new suprises, and sell it for the same $399 price.

$399?

Less then £200? Europe really does get screwed over in the gaming market.

[Gilda Dent]

I doubt it'll make much difference. HD player sales are tiny compared to regular ones and physical disc formats will probably be obsolete in five to ten years.

Agreed. The current format war is largely artificial, spurred on primarily by sagging DVD sales (sales which were "sagging" simply because most everybody already re-bought the movies they had on VHS, and now simply buy new releases). Digital distribution is the REAL future format, and both Blu-Ray and HDDVD are likely to go the way of laserdiscs as a mass media program.

Sure, direct online delivery to a hard drive enabled system like the XBox or PS3, or to very high capacity DVRs is almost certainly going to eventually become the dominant distribution model, and it's certainly possible that this will happen without high def discs catching on with anyone other than early adopters.

Two things will need to happen for this to be feasible. First, prices on very large harddrives need to come down. This will be happening relatively soon. Terrabyte drives are soon going to be cheap enough for the average PVR or computer user.

Second, very high bandwidth broadband connections will need to become commonplace. For high def content, perhaps as much as 10gb/s for download times to be reasonable, and at least 5gb. That might be further away.

DVD has been around for about ten years. It may not be another ten before we get to online delivery as the default format, but if it takes six or eight years, as it might, it's possible for HD discs to have their time.

But only once the format war ends.

[cable guy]

Good news indeed... as I am a hardcore Playstation guy.

I want sales high enough to ensure that it is still around by the time I get up the money to buy one.

[Agent Helix]

DVD has been around for about ten years. It may not be another ten before we get to online delivery as the default format, but if it takes six or eight years, as it might, it's possible for HD discs to have their time.

But only once the format war ends.

The thing is, though, the vast majority of consumers aren't biting with EITHER Blu-Ray or HDDVD. It's a completely fabricated format war, because nobody really cares about it beyond the companies trying desperately to get their profit margin back to those halcyon days of the DVD takeoff. It's not happening, and it's very unlikely TO happen, because the change in format isn't nearly as visible as VHS to DVD. There's simply not visible enough an upgrade for most consumers, and the sales are showing that. I think DVDs are going to be around after Blu-Ray and HD both pack up shop.

[Tadhg]

We're more than a decade away from Digital distribution being the dominant model for Video purchases. Our infrastructure isn't designed to handle that amount of addtional data transfer. The first week, Transformers sold close to 9 million copies on DVD and HD-DVD. Supposing a digital distribution, and a high compression(DVD quality and extras in a 1GB container), you're looking at 9 petabytes of information needing to be transferred to equate to the physical media sales of a single title on its opening week(Granted the biggest opening week for a DVD ever). A lot of the copper would need to be replaced with Fiber before this could happen.

[Nate Grey]

The thing is, though, the vast majority of consumers aren't biting with EITHER Blu-Ray or HDDVD. It's a completely fabricated format war, because nobody really cares about it beyond the companies trying desperately to get their profit margin back to those halcyon days of the DVD takeoff. It's not happening, and it's very unlikely TO happen, because the change in format isn't nearly as visible as VHS to DVD. There's simply not visible enough an upgrade for most consumers, and the sales are showing that. I think DVDs are going to be around after Blu-Ray and HD both pack up shop.

I agree with this 100%. DVDs are too cheap these days for me to switch to either HDDVD or Blu-Ray. I'd rather put that money into a big HDTV. I wouldn't be surprised if others thought the same way.

[Rattlehead]

I agree with this 100%. DVDs are too cheap these days for me to switch to either HDDVD or Blu-Ray. I'd rather put that money into a big HDTV. I wouldn't be surprised if others thought the same way.

You can pick a huge number of quality movies on standard DVD for anywhere from $5 to $10 a pop. That's opposed to the average price of a Blu-Ray or High-Def DVD being $30. As long as the price gap is that big, standard DVD's are going to be king.

[Jared_Humpherys]

Don't forget that most HD and Blu-Ray players also upscale standard DVDs, further lessening the noticeable difference between format quality.

[Nate Grey]

Don't forget that most HD and Blu-Ray players also upscale standard DVDs, further lessening the noticeable difference between format quality.

Heck regular DVD players are starting to do that, too. Best Buy always seems to have a sale on Philips DVD players that do that.

[Hiromi]

Likely had something to do with a big name game they could FINALLY get behind in Assassin's Creed, and the upcoming MGS4 release.

[Thorlief]

this month, NPD must be something like this



PS3 350 k
360 700k
Wii 1m