12:45 pm
With PS3 sales overtaking Xbox 360 sales in the last couple of months there have been many articles and reports flying around the internet saying that the PS3 is finally starting to catch up to the 360 and may possibly even overtake it soon.
Interesting concept, except for the fact that it’s flawed.
The current sales of the Xbox 360 and PS3 on VGchartz are as follows:
Xbox 360: 20.44 Million
Playstation 3: 15.05 Million
The thing is, that if you look at the console sales, you can see that the gap in sales between the PS3 and Xbox 360 is still roughly the same as it was when the PS3 was launched.
This means that in the current state, the sales of the PS3 are at best only matching the sales of the Xbox 360 even though sales for Sony’s console have picked up recently.
The PS3 is indeed becoming more popular and the past problems with the Xbox 360′s hardware have made quite a difference. However, we all know that the Xbox 360 is going to be the only console offering HD next-gen gaming at the magic price of $199 US dollars.
As we have stated in previous articles, come Christmas time, parents are going to be flocking to stores to ensure a truckload of new foul mouthed children join us on Xbox Live and when they do, the low price of the Xbox 360 is going to be incredibly tempting, especially with Nintendo’s Wii suffering from shortages abroad.
As much as the PS3 enjoys strong brand recognition and a large fanbase from the PS2 generation, the purchasing decisions are that of the parents and not the children and when the price is right, the parents are all for it. So how is the the future of the PS3 looking?
We spend so much time discussing exclusive titles and graphics comparisons that we forget that at the end of the day it largely comes down to parents, standing in a store, staring at shelves with PS3′s and Xbox 360′s on them. They don’t care about MGS4 and Gears of War 2. They see a low price tag on one of them “new console thingamajigs” and the truth is, its not the PS3.
It seems pretty obvious which one is going to be leaving in their trolley.
[Thanks Ewie for the tip]
