Console Post of the Week
I mentioned last month that the 360 had outsold the PS3 over a seven-week period in Japan.Now, it's a nine-week period. Including sales from the last two weeks (up to Oct. 5), here are the numbers:
360--103,801
PS3--79,302
If someone had asked us last year what the odds were that, over a two-month period, the 360 would outsell the PS3 by thirty percent in Japan, what would we have said?
100-1?
500-1?
1000-1?
I think I would have said a thousand to one.
No matter how many units the PS3 sells in the last three months of the year, these kinds of numbers are causing some wet trousers for Sony executives.
I can't believe I'm even saying this, but I think that after years of ridicule, Microsoft has gotten a foothold in Japan.
Good grief, I must be high to have typed that.
Sony had a very decent first half of 2008 in most of the world, but their strategy is starting to collapse, and it all revolves around their unwillingness to match the 360 price cuts.
Is Little Big Planet going to fix this? Man, I don't know. It looks fun, and it looks very creative, but the price gap is $100 between the 360 and the PS3. How many parents are going to be willing to swallow that delta when they're shopping for Christmas gifts?
Here's the thing: the gaming industry is pretending that the currently near-terrifying events in world finance aren't going to affect their business.
Wrong.
It's going to make shoppers even more price-sensitive when it comes to comparing consoles, and that's not good news for Sony.
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