Darrin Says: February 5th, 2008 at 9:45 am I believe the numbers are sold to retail for both Microsoft and Sony. Their Q4 figures were 4.9 million for PS3 and 4.3 million for 360. PS3 is definitely ahead worldwide! Great news. I agree, why is this such a quiet, hidden news story?

richard Says: February 5th, 2008 at 9:57 am i believe it. i wonder how many of the numbers for 360 are people who already own a 360 but have to buy a new one because of the red ring of death. thats where microsoft gets there sales numbers, not people buying their first xbox but their 2nd or 3rd.

mcloki Says: February 5th, 2008 at 10:10 am I think this will be brought to everyones attention at GDC. Sony has a good story to tell to developers. Develop for the PS3 since it will be a platform that will be around for 10 years. The 360 will revamp in 3-4 and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some big changes to the wii hardware this year or next. Upgrade to HD. Number of consoles sold only matter to developers. Realistically, we as consumers have already made our choice, Developers on the other hand, have to “buy into” a platform each time they commit resources to make a game. The next big developer shift will be the developers not committing resources to making a PS2 version and only focusing on the PS3. The day that happens with a Madden game the reign of the PS2 will be over. And on a side note. I guess the side poll was done in the wrong year.

Henning Says: February 5th, 2008 at 10:16 am The side poll is about sales in North America, where the PS3 still trails the 360. Last year the PS3 outsold the 360 globally, but not in North America.

mcloki Says: February 5th, 2008 at 10:28 am Yes I forgot. I just get a geeky joy out of the fact that, even we, may have succumb to the media bias. I love conspiracies. I’ve still got June for NA.

Mike Says: February 5th, 2008 at 11:42 am I guess it’s true that 360 is a dud in Europe outside of the UK. I used to think not selling in Japan would be a problem for them until Japanese development really started to take a nose dive, but a lot of those games will still end up as PS3/360 games because nobody buys third party Wii games. This is some interesting news, but the real battle is going to be third party software sales. Right now 360 is still king in that department. It’s probably going to take another price drop for PS3 to compete in that regard, because right now the people buying the system are probably using it for Blu-Rays and exclusive software, not Madden running at half the frame rate.

Sporty Says: February 5th, 2008 at 12:50 pm Depends on who’s reporting the numbers if they are to retail or sold through. Currently Microsoft is the only company left that use sold to retail. Sony switch to sold through consumers early last year. That when their base went from 5 million to 3 million as they switched. But I predict this thread will get ugly. A lot of idiots get their panties in a bunch when they hear about positive Sony news and have to come dispute it and spin.

Richard Says: February 5th, 2008 at 1:13 pm the reason why sony isn’t trumpeting these numbers is because they’re not true, or at least, they don’t mean what you think they mean. Sporty is incorrect, microsoft does not report sold to customer #’s and neither does sony. the problem with 2008’s numbers is that they stuffed the retail channels with 360 at the end of 2006 to hit their number’s (I’m talking about microsoft) which caused a dropoff in 2008. You don’t have to believe me, but if what you were posting were actually the case, don’t you think sony would have mentioned it themselves? that bs about microsofts sales numbers coming from people buying replacement 360’s is hilarious, with every single 360 ever made still under warranty for the rrod, sure some people buy more than one, but not a lot.

Johan Says: February 5th, 2008 at 1:48 pm I think that with all of the backlash against any and all Sony marketing, they are going to take the down low perspective on this news and let the news build steam on its own. This way it doesn’t seem like forced PR and actual news generated from the masses.

Darrin Says: February 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm Richard, Regardless, these are *official* total sales figures straight from the stockholder reports of Sony & Microsoft. These numbers hold far more weight and validity than analyst estimates or territory-specific figures. PS3 *definitely* sold more units to retailers than 360 did by over one million units, and while you have a good point regarding channel stuffing, it still probably means that PS3 sold better to consumers, or if it didn’t, PS3 came very, very close. This is in complete contrast to what the media has been saying all year. Why isn’t Sony or anyone else making noise about these figures? These numbers have been publically available for only a few days (when Microsoft + Sony released Q4 financials) and Sony isn’t good at this kind of PR stuff.

mcloki Says: February 5th, 2008 at 2:24 pm It’s not the news. It’s the timing of news that’s important. Sony gains nothing by touting this today.Two weeks from now, going into a developers Conference, where lots of media coverage is going to parrot whatever MS or Sony say, is a better time, PR wise.

Sporty Says: February 5th, 2008 at 2:35 pm “Sporty is incorrect, microsoft does not report sold to customer #’s and neither does sony.” I never said MS reports sold to customer numbers. I actually said the opposite. I only said Sony switched their reporting to sold through customers last summer. But I don’t care enough to search for the report just to prove it. I don’t care if you believe me, it’s not exactly a secret. You can search SCE financial date if you really care. It’s not that important really. And BTW, Sony did a PR about this 2 weeks ago. You might recall them saying by Summer they will have a larger install base then 360 in the PAL regions. So Sony did mention is.

Mike Says: February 5th, 2008 at 2:50 pm There were definitely some people who bought replacement 360’s prior to the indirect recall that happened over the summer with everybody’s warranty being extended to three years. I doubt many of the sales they got after that were for replacements. And like PS2, if so many of them were replacement units, the software attach rate would not be so high because people would be buying the hardware for games they already own. If Microsoft had a problem other than RROD, it’s that Halo 3 did not give them an enormous boost in hardware sales, most likely because people who wanted it were buying the system as games like Gears of War came out. I’d still like to see both companies lower the MSRP’s for when GTA IV hits. Neither system is selling as much as it should be, and this will be a rare opportunity to move units in the spring. If they keep the prices above $299 for too long, they’re going to miss on a lot of potential costumers.

Sporty Says: February 5th, 2008 at 2:51 pm Also mcloki is right, Sony will probably repeat this at GDC. Although they already did one press release stating it, but positive Sony news doesn’t get carried as much as negative news so that probably why you haven’t heard it yet. I don’t think we’ll have channel stuff that bad this year. MS took a major backlash from retailers last year for it. Either way it’s easy to tell on the next NPD. If the channels are stuffed then retailers wont need to order many if any in January. That of course only effects companies that report shipped and not sold.

Mike Says: February 5th, 2008 at 2:51 pm …or customers rather. Nobody is dressing up like Spiderman when they go to buy a console, right?

lena the thinker Says: February 5th, 2008 at 3:19 pm I’m not surprised if ps3 outsold xbox360. If i were the one to be ask, PS3 is really better than XBox

Darrin Says: February 5th, 2008 at 3:32 pm Sporty, NPD measures sales to consumers (in North America) which is NOT affected by channel stuffing. Sony+Microsoft quarterly financial reports show global sales to retailers which IS affected by channel stuffing.

Sporty Says: February 5th, 2008 at 3:50 pm Your right I was thinking of last year as an example. But either way. I still say Sony Financial statements are sold through not shipped as of last July as Sony stated in a conference call. But you can still think both do shipped if you want.

Darrin Says: February 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm Directly from Sony’s PDF report: “Beginning with the quarter ended June 30, 2007, the method of reporting hardware and software unit sales has been changed from production shipments to recorded sales.” I’m pretty sure recorded sales is referring to sales to retailers, not sales to consumers as NPD/MediaCreate track.

Sporty Says: February 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm I guess it’s up for interpretation then. But from my understanding production shipments is reporting shipped. Recorded sales are sold through to customers. If it’s your way then really they didn’t change anything, since they used to report shipped before. Either way it doesn’t change the numbers of this article. Only waters down the 360 numbers.

Sporty Says: February 5th, 2008 at 6:02 pm Either way good job in tracking down that damn quote Darrin. I looked for about 10 minutes or so but couldn’t and said the hell with it.

Jast3r Rogu3 Says: February 8th, 2008 at 6:10 am PS3 1st year was epic, the most succesfull 600$ gaming system ever created, its only going to get better as it grows old, just look at history of what happend to the PSX, PS2 and PSP, they just keep getting better and better with time. Sony hasnt been the king of the gaming world for more then 12 years for nothing they know what they are doing. 2008 is not just PS3s year, or Blu-rays year. its Sonys year.

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