November '08 sales decline blamed on 40GB's successful '07 introduction

Talking to CNET, Sony has revealed why the PS3's November sales were actually lower in 2008 than in 2007, despite an upward trend for other consoles across the board. It seems that the introduction of the 40GB model and a new lower price in November 2007 was too successful, meaning that the PS3 was unable to compete with itself even a year later. What Sony forgot to mention is that the cheapest Xbox 360 is currently selling for half the cheapest PS3's price.

Sounds obvious, doesn't it? Price cut equals more sales. Maybe if Sony had done the same thing in 2008 the PS3 would have outsold its own year-old ghost (that's a racing game metaphor, not a Christmas Carol "Ghost of Christmas Past" one). Microsoft's Aaron Greenburg says in the same CNET post that the company's internal figures suggest that the Xbox 360 now has an 8 million unit lead on the PS3 worldwide, with 28 million 360s and 20 million PS3s in the wild.

Until the December NPD numbers appear we won't know the true truth, but it's fair to assume he 360 outsold the PS3 by a decent margin. Hopefully we'll see a price drop soon, so that more people can get hold of a PS3 without having to take out a second mortgage.