Has the Xbox 360 Price Cut Killed the Sony PS3?
Filed under: Gaming | By: Peter Chubb
Posted on: November 3, 2008 | 20 Comments
Both Sony and Microsoft are both entering the crucial times when it comes to the sales of their Xbox 360 and PS3 games consoles. It looks as though Sony have already lost the battle before it has begun in the Japanese market, as sales of the Xbox 360 are far greater than that of the PlayStation 3.
There are a number of factors to this, and the major one has to be the constant price cuts of the Xbox 360. However no matter how well the sales of Microsoft’s console are doing, it is still behind the sales figures of the Nintendo Wii and DS, as well as the Sony PSP.
There are those out there who would have thought that the Sony PS3 would now have higher sales, one because the format war with HD DVD and Blu-ray is now over, with Blu-ray being the victor. Sony is at fault, as they still refuse to offer any price cuts. When they do offer price cuts they reduce hardware features, such as less storage on the hard drive and removing USB ports. Sony had better take a long hard look at their business plan for the holiday season, if they hope to close the gap between them and the Xbox 360.
CLICK HERE to keep updated with the latest news, share a comment or problems with products and services. Follow us on twitter or read more sony news.
Nice article except sales of the ps3 in Japan are massively ahead of 360, its only the last 6 weeks that 360 outsold it so no real story there then. Goodnight.
The Xbox 360 price cut was necessary because the company is beginning to see that the PS3 is gaining momentum. Just recently it was stated on a number of sites that the PS3 is selling more games than the Xbox 360. Developers are already realizing that the lead platform should be PS3 and it will only be some time before the PS3 separates itself from 360 in all areas of gaming. I agree with bigd in that 360 hasn’t even scratched the surface of the Japanese market the fact that they are currently outselling the PS3 means little.
Look out, Sony going to roll through.
The Xbox has yet to reach 1 million in sales over in Japan while the PS3 sits at about 2.5 million. Worldwide Sony is behind by about 5 million with the PS3 at just over 16 million to the 360’s 21 mill. But Considering that Microsoft had a one year head start on Sony and the answer to your question is clearly No.
There’s so much wrong with that article, seriously this guy can’t be looking at the sales, “has the price cut killed the PS3″??? please give me a break the sales on a weekly bases barely changed durring this price cut. Ever sinse the price cut the X360 has been beating the PS3 week after week yes, but that gap is decreasing every week by a large margin. Right now the PS3 is beating the X360 in others by quite a bit week after week, so the price cut didn’t do much for the X360 there, in Japan it has been beating the PS3 for about 6 or 7 weeks but this week was the last time the X360 will beat the PS3 by week because of the GTA IV release and LBP bundle, and new 80 GB model. And America the gap is closing little by little each week. Worldwide for this week the X360 will probably beat the PS3 by about 5,000 - 10,000, for a console selling half the price of the PS3, well that’s just very poor sales.
The PS3 is doing fine, again especially for a console that’s selling twice the price of the X360, if anything I’d be very worried about the X360 right now. The X360 won’t be having another price cut for “many years” according to Microsoft, so once the PS3 get’s a price cut then the X360 is screwed. Sinse I’m on the subject of the PS3 having a price cut its just not going to happen right now for obvious reasons. Sony is pretty tight with money right now, if they had a price cut they’d be screwed, the more PS3’s that sell with a price cut the more money they lose, it’d be stupid to have a price cut right now. There doing the right thing.
so in conclusion this article FAILS
i love this article.
alot of the info is wrong but i love microsoft and sony can go and die.
the ps3 sucks. anyone who cant see that obviously hasnt played a 360 yet.
and if you havent played a 360 yet, theres something really really wrong with you.
@blahz
I’ve owned a 360 since launch and I have over 20 games for it plus 50+ original Xbox games so you can keep your unwarranted M$ fanboy statements to yourself.
There’s nothing wrong with the PS3 and clearly you don’t own one or have any first hand knowledge of the platform so your opinion really has no foundation.
This whole website is dedicated to trolling.
First of all i don’t think you could call the PS3 dead if it fails outsell the 360, sure it would be bad news for Sony given the dominant market share that the PS1 and PS2 enjoyed but i can’t see Sony dropping it any time soon.
The gap in worldwide sales is about the same now as it was when Sony launched the PS3, it actually got bigger as the PS3’s post launch sales were quite slow but since then they built up some momentum and clawed in back to the same lead that MS started with, unfortunately for Sony some of that momentum has been reversed by the new low price point of the 360.
The 360 has outsold PS3 for the last seven weeks in Japan, nobody knows how long this trend will last, if you had asked me 5 weeks ago i wouldn’t have predicted tha 360 still outselling PS3 by 2 to 1 in it’s home turf so i really wouldn’t want to predict the next seven weeks, to be fair Japan has been a bit of a non-event for both PS3 and 360 and even if the 360 continues to eat into Sony’s lead i don’t think the impact on worldwide sales will be very substantial.
I think MS’s lead will grow a little over the christmas period and a bit beyond and i’m not sure if the PS3 will ever catch up worldwide but i certainly don’t think this makes the PS3 dead, dissapointing for a formerly dominant brand leader sure but as long as it has a maket share that makes it a worthwhile format to develope for then there should be no talk of anyone killing it off.
360 sales in japan are coming at the cost of purchasing game exclusives in Japan friendly JRPG titles from Namco and Square Enix. The most recent Tales game shipped recently in japan. PS3 is also about to see the well heralded launch of a new 80GB model in Japan which has depressed sales of the 40GB model. Then there is the Final Fantasy factor. FFXIII is a console exclusive to PS3 in Japan. It’s somewhat premature to discuss 360 winning/beating anyone or anything, not to mention the fact that Nintendo is crushing all before it (except PSP).
Let’s have this discussion in 6 months time after FFXIII has been shipped in Japan and a few more JRPG games and other japan-o-centric titles hit.
MS has shown one thing, in Japan certain genre of game are important, and throwing money at the situation can cause positive benefit at massive cost. Sooner or later though, that cost benefit equation will unwind itself, and the cost will outweigh the benefit. Certainly both Namco and Square Enix are hurting themselves in terms of game sales. Sure the checks from Redmond will fill the gap, but will sieighted gamers and markets recover so quickly?
Whether or not the market recovers, The Xbox 360 still remains the easier and cheaper console to devolop for, I would say that is a positive for smaller developers who want to get a foothold in this “HD” era.
Also, with the 360 outselling the PS3 for the last seven weeks and probably even longer and by a bigger margin considering a new RPG from Square/Enix is on the horizon and the lower price+quantity of JRPG’s already out + the upcoming holiday season, I think the 360 will continue to lead for a while to come, until FF XIII anyways. To say the PS3 is dead is stupid. Clearly it’s not, It’s just not as popular as Sony would like.