July NPDs Show PS3 Didn't Pull Ahead of 360
(Comment from Auri: Jeez, if you have a PS3, there's what - maybe 20 games for it? Maybe 5 that are actually worth playing all the way through? It's a great BluRay player, but Sony really needs great games - not just "arcade" games downloaded onto the console. Oh, and developers need to be able to easily write software for the console... check out the Madden '08 on PS3 vs. XBox 360 articles
here and
here... 2x faster on 360... the reason: EA's developers didn't have enough time to figure out how to code for the PS3...)
Despite last month's price drop, Sony's PlayStation 3 console just
couldn't pull ahead of the Microsoft Xbox 360. Both, according to the
latest NPD results, are still dwarfed by the continued domination of
Nintendo's Wii console. 1up has the numbers for July: 'PlayStation 2 -
222k, PlayStation 3 - 159k, PSP - 214k, Xbox 360 - 170k, Wii - 425k,
Nintendo DS - 405k, Game Boy Advance -- 87k.' For further commentary we
can turn to Gamasutra, which offers a further breakdown on the numbers
and some big picture perspective for this year:
"Total industry revenue for 2007 presently stands at $7.0 billion. If
there is no year-on-year growth for any month until the end of 2007,
then the industry will finish the year with $14.5 billion in revenue,
an increase in 16% over 2006. That's a reasonably pessimistic scenario
... If we start with our current $7.0 billion as of the end of July and
continue at a rate of 40% growth through the end of the year, then we
arrive at a total of $17.5 billion for all of 2007 ... If Wii supply
constraints are eased, Halo 3 sells as well as expected, Sony's
first-party software attracts more PS3 buyers, and Rock Band and Guitar
Hero III are both hits, it seems likely that revenues may go above $18
billion. In this optimistic scenario, industry revenues during the
single month of December 2007 would equal or surpass the total annual
revenue from all of 1997."
Source: PSP Updates