News
US: PS3 tops 360 in June hardware sales
Ben Parfitt Jul 18 2008, 11:27am
Comments (3)
Sony’s recent confidence seemingly backed up by impressive sales victory over core rival
If there’s one thing that was evident from Sony’s E3 conference it was the firm’s confidence in its range of platforms, and in particular the PS3 – and this self-belief has now been backed up by news that North American sales of the PS3 in June were very nearly double those of rival Xbox 360.
June NPD figures show that PS3 sold a total of 405,500 units in the period, far in excess of Xbox 360’s 219,800 unit sales. The success was attributed mainly to the release of Konami's popular Metal Gear Solid 4.
However, it must be pointed out that it was also far behind Wii’s sales of 666,700.
Xbox 360 was also outsold by Sony’s PSP, which shifted 337,400 machines.
Everyone, of course, was outstripped by DS which shifted a huge 783,000 units in the period.
Still, it would be foolish to write off Microsoft’s machine, which is enjoying impressive year-on-year sales increases. And as much as Sony portrayed belief in its own machine at E3, Microsoft’s Don Mattrick was not shy in clearly proclaiming that “Xbox 360 will outsell the PS3 in this console generation” at his firm's E3 gathering.
Comments
“Thats a proper ass kicking...”
Posted by: Ian - Jul 18, 1:28pm
200k plus in June would usually be good. PS3/MGS bundles obviously just killed them. Question must be now...will the 360 ever outsell PS3 again?? PS3 figures more remarkable now given the greater price differences.
“Re: Thats a proper ass kicking...”
Posted by: WazWii - Jul 18, 2:06pm
Good news for Sony....they managed to nearly double their PS3 units which you have to see is pretty impressive. At best i thought the PS3 would manage 250k units only this month. It just shows what a system exclusive really can do....which makes it even more amazing Sony has lost so many....
In fact Sony scored nearly 1 million hardware units sold in one month in one territory which again is impressive. Still Nintendo rule the roost (they still have stock problems!). Hopefully the PS3/PSP/PS2 can keep the sales up next month.
“Re: Re: Thats a proper ass kicking...”
Posted by: LeeC - Jul 21, 9:02am
@1: Yes, undoubtedly the sales margins will shift back the other way. Exclusives shift machines and 360 has at least Gears of War 2 and Too Human to arrive to do exactly what MGS4 has done.
I think the more logical question is, will the PS3 ever outsell the 360 again? And of course, it will with LBP and KZ2 and of course, GOW3. Sales will shift up and down with every exclusive... it's the sales "between" the exclusives that count and that's where Sony needs to make up ground.
The difference is of course that the PS3 has fewer units in homes, so there is always potentially more people still left to buy the machine.
Unfortunately, what seems to be a common factor, is that people rushed out to buy an expensive system to play what ultimately turned out to be a dreary documentary about the life and times of Metal Gear Solid (with the occasional bit of gameplay thrown in) and end up left with an expensive system, with very little else to make that additional cost worthwhile.
They're better off of course than those who bought the PS3 for Pro Evo 2008, so they have that as consolation I guess.