Sony pleased by recent PS3 sales climb
by Andrew Yoon 
{ Aug 24th 2007 at 1:00PM }
Sony has responded to this month's NPD reports on sales. "We were obviously very pleased to see that PS3 sales increased with 159K units sold at retail for the month of July, which puts us up 61% over June numbers." Impressive! Although the PS3 didn't outsell the Xbox 360, it got close (the Xbox 360 sold 180k).The sales increase is most likely spurred by the recent price drop, but also the upcoming library of games that will be arriving on the PS3. However, it seems unlikely that Europe will receive a price drop. In a statement to Next-Gen, the always outspoken David Reeves admitted that a price drop so early in the game would be like admitting defeat. "Had we gone down in price in July, that's three months after we launched PS3. It'd be kind of like saying, 'hey, we failed.' But we didn't. We've been selling through much more than we ever thought we would be, even in Germany. If [a price cut is] what they want to do in the US, fine... But we don't need to do it in Europe."
With games like Warhawk and Heavenly Sword available in the coming weeks, it'll be interesting to see how Sony's next-gen platform fares. Until then, Sony can enjoy the still-incredible sales of PS2 hardware and software.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gamingeek @ Aug 24th 2007 1:05PM
WTF is going on with PS3 advertising? It is virtually nonexisant! Did Sony lay off their entire marketing department? Because I haven't seen a single PS3 ad since Motorstorm was released! You'd think the with the 60 GB price reduction that it'd be all over the media. It's called getting the message out guys and it often works. Micro$oft are masterful at this while Sony's marketing sucks!
Tony @ Aug 24th 2007 1:12PM
Um... when is this U.S. price cut supposed to come?
EDGE @ Aug 24th 2007 1:12PM
@gamingeek
err I dont recall seeing any 360 ad's recently. Oh, and the the 60 GB SKU price drop was all over the media. PS3 Being number 1 on amazon.com for quite a while is advertising in itself.
EDGE @ Aug 24th 2007 1:14PM
@2
A 61% increase over June is good news indeed.
HJrAS @ Aug 24th 2007 1:16PM
@gaiming geek
actually, i did saw an ad. about the starter pack for ps3. apart from that we get loads of advertising in eruope, when there is soccer games and stuff
EDGE @ Aug 24th 2007 1:18PM
The PS3 is wiping the floor with the 360 in Japan, just a matter of time before it picks up momentum in other countries. The writing is on the wall.
RPGJock @ Aug 24th 2007 1:25PM
@EDGE
That all I see is XBox 360 ads. For Madden 08, for Bioshock, for Halo 3. No ads for Warhawk, Lair, or Heavenly Sword on TV I have seen. Sony is as bad as Nintendo with the lack of support ads for their big games coming out, I am looking at you Metroid Prime 3.
Andy @ Aug 24th 2007 1:26PM
I would have figured it would outsell the 360 in July but I guess not.
The price cut was after E3 right? If they announced it at the beginning of July it might have surpassed 360 sales.
Andy @ Aug 24th 2007 1:31PM
@8/RPGJock
I think Sony should save their advertising dollars for the holiday season and spend ad money on games like Uncharted and LBP.
coplice @ Aug 24th 2007 1:38PM
i think i have never seen in my whole life a playstation ad in quebec, canada
i saw xbox and wii ads, but never from Sony
i hope sony will try a little here as long its not "this is living" incredibly stupid european ad
EDGE @ Aug 24th 2007 1:40PM
@10
No doubt Bioshock/Halo 3 played into the mix, as will new PS3 games, but lets face it, the 360 is still the cheaper console, cheaper for a reason ( if you know what I mean ).
Nobody can doubt the PS3 has been battling in sales, until now, seeing the 61% jump is massive, and the PS3 sales will only get better.
Phil @ Aug 24th 2007 1:42PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6961737.stm
An easier climb on the books perhaps?
grassroots @ Aug 24th 2007 2:02PM
we got them for sure in July by looking at the numbers, August will be the 360 by a small margin. I do expect the 360 to be on top for the next two months b/c of the mainstream game called Halo coming out.
Jam @ Aug 24th 2007 2:14PM
Yeh proud new pS3 owner
Andir3.0 @ Aug 24th 2007 2:22PM
Welcome Jam!
Mike @ Aug 24th 2007 2:25PM
There's no question that a 61% increase is great news for the PS3, however, I'm still left asking a few questions:
First off, will these sales be sustainable once the 60gb models are all gone? I'd love to see a breakdown of how many 60gb, and how many 80gb were sold.
Will the holiday line up be enough to keep those sales just as high (if not higher)? I've heard nothing but good things about Heavenly Sword, and Warhawk, but Lair has been getting mixed reviews. Let's not forget that they'll be up against Halo 3.
As for Japan, while the PS3 is currently outselling the 360, but the 360 did have a headstart, and that likely means they're on fairly even footing as far as install base is concerned. That won't last - the PS3 will likely surpass the 360 on that front soon unless Microsoft pulls an amazingly large rabbit out of their hat.
I guess the point I'm really getting at here is this: Yes, the sales boost is good news.... but don't plant your flag until you make it all the way to the top of the mountain.
Jay Are Baboon @ Aug 24th 2007 2:33PM
@ poster
xbox 360 is only outselling ps3 in america (not exact figures). in the rest of the world, ps3 is winning (not exact figures). sony doesnt need to spin this b/c they have two systems selling. did everybody 4get the console that is second to wii- PS2! the writing is on the wall alright and it reads...
"There are no games comin out for the 360 starting summer 08"
can anybody name a good one?
diclaimer- i am in no way an expert (except on GH2) and neither are you. i own a ps3 and a wii.
Docta @ Aug 24th 2007 2:37PM
FYI- PS3 has sold over a million units is japan. xbox 360 is ALMOST @ the 500k mark.
poster, are you sure the lack of sales in japan is made up in america?
Mike @ Aug 24th 2007 2:41PM
Poster, and Jay Are Baboon,
http://www.maxconsole.net/content_img/wiisallsss.jpg
That chart shows roughly what each console has sold in each territory. The writing is actually on the chart, and it reads: "The Wii will step on your face and slap yo mama's ass with it's sales"
Railven @ Aug 24th 2007 2:44PM
I need to know something, how do they tabulate sales?
I just learned a few things two of my friends have been doing for about a year now.
It seems they go to Target/Walmart and exploit the 90-Day return policy. They buy a 360 and then return it. They but it again and return it.
I asked them why they kept doing this one said "there aren't many games to play for me to just keep it and I don't want the RROD."
The other one had a more logical response saying he keeps switching it and will keep it once he knows they have the Falcon chips.
I'm sure there are tons of people that buy a 360, get an RROD and return it probably not saying anything then go and buy it again.
Mike @ Aug 24th 2007 2:49PM
Railven,
if I'm not mistaken NPD sales are calculated by taking numbers of units moved straight from retailers. This most likely accounts for returns, as retailers factor returns into their inventory.
Jay Are Baboon @ Aug 24th 2007 2:51PM
cmon now halo 3 isnt gonna sell systems. chances are if you want halo, then you already got xbox 360. who waits until the game is released to buy the system? dont give me a lot of people, gimme names. jus kiddin but thats stupid to wait until the game is released. what is the point of that?
Mike @ Aug 24th 2007 2:56PM
Jay Are Baboon,
Here's the thing - not everyone has the money to drop on a new gen system. Chances are that there's a loooot of people who started saving their pennies when they heard about Halo 3. It will move systems. Games sell consoles. The whole reason to buy a console is to play games on it, and for a lot of people Halo 3 will be the game that justifies the investment in a 360. You'll see the same thing happen for the PS3 when Final Fantasy XIII comes out.
TORO @ Aug 24th 2007 6:04PM
"cmon now halo 3 isnt gonna sell systems"
We'll check the NPD reports this fall, you'll eat your words buddy ;)
Bozzie @ Aug 24th 2007 6:28PM
Ah common all those 360s are people buying new ones as there old ones broke(Joke i actually own a 'reliable'(touch wood) 360)
But any boost in sales is good, to say there is no single killer game for the PS3 yet. Ok we have good games but theres not one defining game you will one day say, "you remember xxxxxxxx" Saying this though there is some with potential up and coming.
A 61% increase in sales is a good start and it could be just what sony need to get the ball rolling. Lots of people buy consoles so they can play with freinds on todays online world. Once your mate has one people are tempted to buy one. Again this is just opinion, but i like to justify it.
No one can predict the future yet, but as i posted on the 360 fanboy page, there may not be a clear winner in this console 'war'. Remeber SNES and Megadrive/Genesis they basicly cohabited.
Personally i would like them both to do well as they both suit certain genres. As a peice of Hardware i prefer my PS3, layout function, simplicity, Blu-Ray. But there is parts like Xbox Live that Sony has a lot of catching up to do. Roll on HOME :).
Gaming wise alot of popular games are cross console, but we know that sony has RPG market in the bag. This influences the Jap market strongly as can be seen from previous sales figures of teh 360 over there. But the 360 has some very good FPS games, somewhere i feel the old PS2 lacked something.
I cannot bring the Wii into the eqaution as i don't own one, and personally think it is filling more of its own market niche. I don't think it competes in the same class as the 360 and PS3 in a none offensive way, just that it is too diffrent.
anyway i typed too long(and poorly) so off to bed :)
rockinrodrigo @ Aug 24th 2007 6:43PM
sony needs to do something, this was the month to catch up with the 360 a little bit, but it didnt happen, the more time it takes them to even out monthly sales with the 360 and eventually surpass them the more behind they will get
sad really, ps3 has lots of potential, if a bad ass game would have come out around the time of the ps3 price drop, it would have boosted sales even more i think, sucks its taking so long for games to come out
aug and sep will be big for the 360
-bioshock (esp after all the great reviews)
-price drop
-halo 3 (have you seen how big the marketing for this will be? holy shnikes!)
Sauvage @ Aug 25th 2007 2:17PM
Starting from this page http://vgchartz.com/weekly.php?date=39271
check out the sales figures ( if they are as accurate as they claim to be ) for PS3 compared to Xbox 360 for Worldwide sales...
Week Ending 8th of July 2007
X360 60,469
Ps3 60,437
W/E 15th July
PS3 90,820
X360 58,261
W/E 22nd July
Ps3 86,027
X360 57,775
W/E 29th July
PS3 106,760
X360 61,762
W/E 5th August
PS3 99,126
X360 61,899
W/E 12th August
PS3 99,026
X360 78,441
W/E 19th August
Ps3 97,183
X360 85,533
What's interesting about these figures is that the PS3 is more expensive than the Xbox 360 and has significantly less games than the Xbox 360, yet for 6 weeks, it out sold the Xbox 360 world wide ( note the price drop is NOT world wide ).
My guess is that the W/E 26th the Xbox should be on a par or better than the Ps3, but after that ( around the end of September ) the PS3 will out sell it again through to Christmas once everyone's Xbox 360 has RROD due to playing games like BioShock and Halo 3 and the release of games like Heavenly Sword, Lair, WarHawk and any other PS3 games I have forgotten to mention.
Essentially America is what is keeping the Xbox 360 ahead of the competition world wide, because it would appear that everywhere else on the planet people are buying the more expensive machine, more so than the Xbox 360.
This of course assumes that there has been not channel stuffing and that what shipped to retailers is what actually sold.