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Posted:
03-20-2007, 12:41 AM
 Following the coverage we did of the PlayStation 3’s performance over in Japan, it is time to take a close look at how the successor to Sony’s behemoth PlayStation 2 has done over in North America. Considering the PlayStation 2 was by far the champion of the last generation over in the US, with nearly thirty eight million units sold since release, and only had the Game Boy Advance trio (original model, SP and micro editions) breathing down its neck with thirty five and a half million, just like in Japan it was expected that the PlayStation 3 would simply waltz onto the market with ease and annihilate the competition. The sheer fact that Nintendo was going head-to-head with the company was seen to be a non factor due to the Wii being severely underpowered in comparison and its predecessor, the GameCube, only mustering up sales of around twelve million during its lifetime.
Sadly, though, reflecting the situation in Japan, Sony was having dire problems getting enough PlayStation 3 units out onto the shop shelves and anyone heading to retail outlets and shopping malls across the country was looking at the harsh reality of walking away empty handed on 17th November, 2006 – the day of launch. With the Wii itself just two days away from launching, suddenly the idea of picking up a Nintendo system, one that cost much less than half that of Sony’s $599 60GB pack, did not seem such a ridiculous idea. But as NPD Funworld only releases monthly data officially and publicly, it meant that the real truth behind the situation would not been revealed until midway through the following month. And boy were we all in for an amazing shock!
During the Thanksgiving month of November it turned out that Sony had managed to sell just under 200,000 units of the PlayStation 3, whilst on the other hand Nintendo had easily swept through a shade over 475,000 pieces of hardware. To rub salt in the wounds, the PS3 was easily knocked out by nearly every other major player in the market. The Game Boy Advance continued its mighty run with over 640,000 handhelds sold, the PlayStation 2 remained ultra healthy with more than 664,000 units, whilst the portable duo of the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable sold 918,000 and 411,000 units, respectively. And, on top of this, the Xbox 360 extended its considerable head start by adding a strong half million plus to its lifetime total.
The hardware side was not as big a problem as the software, though, with very low game sales all round. First Party effort Resistance: Fall of Man was the best seller with around 70,000 copies sold, but other than that it all made for sad reading – Madden 07 scraped 35,000, Call of Duty 3 only sold 24,000 units and Ridge Racer 7 stalled badly with only 12,000 people picking up the high octane arcade racing title that was leading the way over in Japan on the system. In comparison, Nintendo was celebrating with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and the Wii proving the best game to system attach ratio since Super Mario 64 hit the Nintendo 64, with 411,000 copies of the action role playing game flying from shelves. Close behind was Ubisoft’s Red Steel with 106,000 sales, Sega’s simian puzzle fest Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz with 64,000 units and the other French hope from Michel Ancel’s team, Rayman Raving Rabbids with 55,000 units sold.
 Surely Sony would be able to ramp things up in time for the Christmas period, right? Well, it certainly did, lifting its console up to a far more respectable figure of 490,682 units sold. The issue this time round was that although this number was indeed seemingly acceptable, everything else around it had had a bumper month. The Game Boy Advance’s three iterations passed 850,000 sales, the PlayStation Portable flew by the 950,000 mark and the Wii was at 604,170. But even they were not the big hitters for December as the Xbox 360 stormed passed 1,130,000 units, the PlayStation 2 was certainly not being hindered by its next generation successor, moving nearly 1.4 million units and the Nintendo DS continued to crush all and sundry with nearly 1.6 million sales! Heck, even the lowly GameCube managed a surprising 200,000 plus sales…
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess continued to show just how a launch game should perform, moving another half a million copies that month, whilst the PlayStation 3’s key launch game, Resistance: Fall of Man, only shuffled across the 210,000 mark. Sony’s system did score one victory for the month, despite all this doom and gloom, with its version of Electronic Arts’ Madden 07 outselling the Wii edition (roughly 150,000 on the PS3 to just over 133,000 sales for the Wii game). But such a small victory in the face of great adversity is nothing worthy of clinging onto, if the truth be told. Not when the true next generation version of Activision’s Call of Duty 3 can only rally together sales of around 85,000 for the month and be beaten by a watered down Wii edition.
And so the New Year of 2007 dawned and the Industry sincerely hoped that it would bring with it a new look Sony, with a reinvigorated PlayStation 3. Unfortunately, unlike the positive points raised in the Japanese launch overview article, nothing good was forthcoming in the slightest...depending on which angle you were looking from, anyway. Massive Wii shortages were aplenty throughout January and, according to Sony, the PS3 was difficult to find in large quantities – yet anecdotal evidence pointed towards the Wii definitely being supply constrained, whilst the PlayStation 3 was in greater supply than Sony was making out. When the numbers hit they showed a dramatic drop across the board as the post Christmas lull set in. However, rather than focusing on that point, all eyes shot to this figure: Wii – 435,500. Whilst practically every other system had fallen into the 200,000s bracket, Nintendo had kept its system ahead of the pack in the face of all these reported shortages. The PlayStation 3 did actually have a good month as well, in fact, with its sales of roughly 245,000 beating out the Nintendo DS (just under 240,000), Game Boy Advance (nearly 180,000) and even the PlayStation Portable (around 210,000). Sony seemed to be gaining some traction after all…except against its Microsoft manufactured competitor, the Xbox 360, which nearly sold 294,000 units and even the comparatively decrepit PlayStation 2, which almost hit 300,000!
Perhaps this was a new start for the PlayStation 3 after all, as even software sales began to see an upturn. With the Wii’s big hitters being Zelda once more, nearly reaching 190,000 sales, Rayman breaking 81,000 and new release Wario Ware: Smooth Moves hitting over 200,000 in a short time, the PlayStation 3 software was plodding along very nicely indeed. Resistance: Fall of Man was certainly receiving impressive word of mouth and had been rewarded by leaping to nearly 145,000 units sold, whilst other games held strong – Madden 07 selling around 75,000, Call of Duty 3 moving just over 50,000 units and a couple of new entries appearing in the form of EA’s Fight Night Round 3 with nearly 53,000 sales and Sega’s critically mauled Sonic the Hedgehog port from the Xbox 360 with around 21,000 units.
 So with a hop, skip and a jump, we find ourselves with the data that has only just been released by the NPD Group for the month of February. With things swinging in a good way for Sony during January, the momentum was bound to help the company’s fortunes during last month, right? Wrong. Terribly wrong, actually. Nintendo did the wise move and reallocated sufficient Wii and DS stock to the US last month, meaning that eager punters snapped up whatever they could get their hands on. As a result, close to 500,000 Nintendo DS systems were sold, with the Wii not far behind, passing the 335,000 mark. The PlayStation 2 sustained its lead over its more powerful, yet much younger brother, selling over 295,000 units, with the Xbox 360 at nearly 230,000, the PSP just over 175,000 and even the GBA series reaching over 135,000. So where did that leave the poor PlayStation 3? Down in the gutter, with lowly sales of 127,321. And wrapping up the month completely, its big new release Virtua Fighter 5 only sold around 53,000 units (even Resistance sold over 70,000!). When compared to how Sonic and the Secret Rings on Wii sold 83,000 plus in just a couple of weeks on sale, Wario Ware moved another 108,000 units, Zelda passed 130,000 and new release Wii Play cracked over 370,000 sales, it really does put the state of affairs into perspective.
And that is all we know so far; doing a quick bit of arithmetic it puts the Wii total to date at 1,851,137 and the PlayStation 3 at 1,058,131. At this stage, thankfully for Sony, 800,000 units difference in sales is nothing major as it could easily be recouped when the PS3 moves into a higher gear. But you do have to fear that the big name games will not be coming out soon enough to counteract the impact the competition is currently having on Sony’s PlayStation Empire. High selling games are imperative and just looking at the best selling software on each platform so far tells quite a story indeed. Zelda is nearly at 1.25 million, Wii Play has started fast with over 370,000, Rayman has cruised past 325,000 and Wario Ware resides at about 310,000. On the Sony side, Resistance: Fall of Man has been the main contender with over half a million sales accrued so far, but then it all falls sharply to 290,000 for Madden 07, 183,000 for Call of Duty 3 and 168,000 for Need for Speed: Carbon.
The only advantage Sony has is that very bad stock issues are currently plaguing Nintendo on a regular basis. If it can ramp up the interest in the PlayStation 3 over the next few months then we could see a very different scene painted before our very eyes. Sony needs to act fast, though, and hit hard.
Watch this space…
Article by Adam Riley
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Banned
Posts: 1,825
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: England
PSN ID: ScootaKuH
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03-20-2007, 01:10 AM
As with Japan, it's a depressing story. Sony really do need perform a miracle to pique consumer interest in the PS3. I've paid for, and should be receiving mine at launch but I'm sure that me alone is hardly a consolation for the hammering Sony is taking at the moment.
Come on Sony!! I'm backing you all the way!!
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PS3Chat Members
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03-20-2007, 07:07 AM
The situation does actually seem far more depressing in the US. But no doubt Sony will pull some clever marketing trick to turn things around.
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Banned
Posts: 1,825
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: England
PSN ID: ScootaKuH
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03-20-2007, 02:35 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jesusraz
The situation does actually seem far more depressing in the US. But no doubt Sony will pull some clever marketing trick to turn things around.
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You want to hope so. There's no sign of it yet. Sony seem to be acting like some senile old fool. |
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PS3Chat Members
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Join Date: Feb 2007
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03-20-2007, 09:57 PM
When you say that, it's sad to admit but it reminds me of how Nintendo was acting for many years. Except a lot of it also came down to arrogance...
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PS3Chat Members
Posts: 144
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Wirral, UK
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03-21-2007, 10:56 AM
Yep, the coin with Nintendo and Sony has 100% flipped, Is like Sony picked up all of Nintendo's bad habits and Nintendo have picked up all that was good about Sony's. I think Sony will be pinning A LOT on the European launch now! I think the system will sell pretty well in Europe as the (what is now) "3" main systems have all been released with decent time gaps, thus, more people may be able to pick up the units. Example:- I wouldn't have been able to pick up a P$3 in Nov/Dec 2006 due to other commitments (Xmas, Trip to NYC and an engagement ring (and she said yes, lol)  , but I was able to pick up a Wii with a few games as that was affordable. Now the P$3 is 3months into the year, I have been able to sort the cash out (or rather it was a gift, as I would have been saving, but have a damn wedding to fund now, lol). But you see my point, xmas is over and people may be in a better position to buy such an expensive erm.....Easter Egg. 
LIVERPOOL FC
PS3 Stuntman,Ratchet & Clank,Lair,Warhawk,Heavenly Sword,Motorstorm,FoM,Ninja Gaiden,Unchartd,Burnout Paradise
360 Mass Effect, Assassins Creed,CoD4,Half-Life Orange Box,PES2008,Stranglehold,Halo3,Bioshock,Forza 2,Oblivion,Ghost Recon 2,R6Vegas,Lost Planet,Gears of War
Wii Mario/Sonic Olympics,Mario Galaxy,Metroid Prime 3,Res Evil 4,Paper Mario,Mario Stkrs,Rayman1&2 etc
DS Lite,Zelda Phantom Hour Glass, Mario Kart etc, PSP & Gamecube Too many games to list, lol
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PS3Chat Members
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03-21-2007, 07:09 PM
I still say that Sony doesn't really know what it's doing until it actually gets the system out there on the market and sees what everyone else is doing. It's a risky business technique, but it managed to win two generations by following that ethic...
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PS3Chat Members
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03-21-2007, 07:40 PM
a think this time the biggest ammount of ps3's tht will be sold is gonna be europe for sure
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PS3Chat Members
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03-22-2007, 07:00 PM
By default, though, since Europe has all the leftover PS3's from other territories!  |
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