Home Gaming The PS3 is only 50 034 units behind the Xbox 360

The PS3 is only 50 034 units behind the Xbox 360

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SalesFigures11May

The Xbox 360 got off to a flying start in this generation with the PlayStation 3 preferring to stay at home perfecting its make up before leaving for the race. By year 3 the Xbox 360 was miles ahead of the PS3 and unbelievably it decided to take a nap.

Back then I stated that if they weren’t careful and rested on their laurels the PS3 would catch them. But instead of offering price drops, new exclusives or even more marketing they decided to switch to the casual market and offer Kinect, TV series and movies instead.

While this may have secured them some nice deals with content providers it definitely didn’t help them move units and now according to every fanboys favourite site, vgchartz, the PS3 has now very much caught up with the Xbox and as of the 11th of May is only 50 034 units behind in world wide sales.

For me this is a massive failure for Microsoft, they had the opportunity to finish in a strong second place, the Wii decimated everyone, but instead of pushing while they were in the lead they became arrogant and instead of pulling a rabbit out of the hat they are going to allow the tortoise to pass them and relegate them to last position in this generation.

I stated on many occasions that Sony would never catch Microsoft in this generation but in my defence I didn’t expect Microsoft to throw in the towel. Sony has done great things to right their original mistakes and continue to this day pushing out fantastic exclusives and hardware revisions while Microsoft has been tricked into thinking America is the world again.

Microsoft won the first few years and Sony has won the end of this generation, with the new Xbox being revealed tonight it will be interesting to see if Microsoft has woken up but to be honest I’m expecting an entertainment box to be revealed and not a games console.

I feel they will gamble on being the all in one box that they think everyone wants… time will tell if they make the right decision.

As a side note, streaming TV and movies work better on the PlayStation.. which always amazes me since Microsoft has put so much effort into punting that service.

Also… look at how the industry sales plummeted when the Wii fell off the cliff

Last Updated: May 21, 2013

18 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief Commander

    May 21, 2013 at 14:35

    Well, is that not attributed to the fact that so many EggsBawkses needed to be replaced for the RROD?

    Or have I got my facts wrong?

    Reply

    • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

      May 21, 2013 at 15:03

      That is something I would like to see. What portion of those sales were attributed to replacement units?

      Although not sure if that would be counted as most damaged units would in all likelihood be repaired and so wouldn’t count towards final sales cost

      Reply

      • Gavin Mannion

        May 21, 2013 at 16:14

        I’ve never seen an official response but my feeling was that a replacement unit was never counted as a sold unit and this rumour was just made up by fans.

        Reply

        • Brady miaau

          May 21, 2013 at 16:43

          that is typically the case, replacement units are different, i.e. not new. Well, in the factory stuff I have worked with this is the case: seems to be the norm

          Reply

        • Skyblue

          May 21, 2013 at 18:18

          yeah well I have purchased 3 X360’s myself over the years of which 2 malfunctioned due to various reasons and were out of warranty. Furthermore I have 2 mates who are both on their second units and theirs were also out of warranty. I think the PS3 was the actual winner of the current gen (with regards to “real” sales) and I really have no pref as I have both consoles.

          Reply

        • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

          May 22, 2013 at 06:52

          Yeah, I tend to lean more to that way of thinking myself

          Reply

        • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

          May 22, 2013 at 06:52

          Yeah, I tend to lean more to that way of thinking myself

          Reply

    • Rince an repeat

      May 21, 2013 at 15:15

      A good point. I believe they put 1 billion aside, which is a shit load of money for a shitty mistake…

      Reply

  2. Admiral Chief Commander

    May 21, 2013 at 14:37

    So the Wii wii’d all across the competition? Good grief.

    Reply

    • Brady miaau

      May 21, 2013 at 16:42

      good grief…….

      Reply

    • RichardC

      May 21, 2013 at 19:35

      Hehe, no no no no, if you want to put Ninty in their own “special corner” you cant pick when to do it or not. Ninty won their own little made-up Mickey Mouse generation by using their own flavour of underhanded techniques.

      Reply

  3. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    May 21, 2013 at 15:02

    I take vgchartz guestimates with a heavy dose of salt, but if you consider the sales trends, PS3 passed the xbox 360 as way back as late February to early March.

    Reply

    • Rince an repeat

      May 21, 2013 at 15:13

      Agreed, I have enough salt here to bury a small town. I remember some raging fanboy quoting VGchartz, last year back in October, that the PS had already overtaken the Xbox…

      Reply

      • Brady miaau

        May 21, 2013 at 16:42

        or season one meal in my home

        Reply

    • e1ace

      May 21, 2013 at 15:29

      Same here. I tend to look at official numbers from Sony and Microsoft. I then just assume they both try and work the numbers in their favour. So when MS says 80 million and Sony 70 million. I know they both talking shit but that you can be kinda confident that there is around a 10 million difference.

      Microsoft said that as of 30th September 2012 70 million Xbox’s had been sold. Sony said that as of 4th November 2012 70 million PS3’s had been sold.

      Reply

  4. Trevor Davies

    May 21, 2013 at 15:13

    over 150 mil consoles alone, and games like Hitman & Tomb Raider can’t even crack 3 mil in sales?

    Reply

  5. casual gamer

    May 21, 2013 at 17:27

    vgchartz. duh. fail.

    Reply

  6. RichardC

    May 21, 2013 at 19:30

    I call Bullshit on this artcile the PS3 beat the 360 in sales a while ago. Its been outselling the 360 worldwide , with the exclusion of North America ofcourse, for quite some time. Plus not to mention all the 360s that have been given away in comps and giveaways that get counted as sales as well as the milions of RROD consoles. Ye the 360 is quite behind the PS3 by now most def. But thats what happens when you make a console that focusses on undehanded business tactics, pointless timed exclusivity deals, the arrogant nature of charging for online multiplayer and not having nearly enough exclusive IPs, people eventually start seeing through the shit.

    Reply

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