With both Xbox 360 and the Wii putting hundreds of thousands of unit sales between themselves and PlayStation 3 last month, Sony’s situation in North America this winter seems grim indeed. Or does it? The PlayStation hardware may be struggling to keep pace with its competitors at present (thanks in no small part to a hefty Microsoft price cut), but the bigger picture is rather brighter.
That’s according to Sony itself, anyway. In a statement shared with VG247, the manufacturer revealed that the PS3 has enjoyed a sales increase of 56 per cent over October 2007, despite a continued high price threshold. PS3 software sales are apparently up by 200 per cent year over year.
Sony refused to take October software charts, which put the delightful LittleBigPlanet in eighth behind Fable 2 and Fallout 3, at face value. The company pointedly reminded readers that the Christmas shopping rush hasn’t "officially" begun, and that the impact of its top drawer titles has yet to be fully registered: "with the holiday shopping season officially kicking off in November, strong software sales are expected to continue with ongoing momentum on LittleBigPlanet and the launch of Resistance 2."
LittleBigPlanet indeed was only on sale for a few days at the backend of October – under those circumstances, a top ten placing is nothing short of miraculous.
A cloudy prospect for PlayStation, then, but one not unalleviated by rays of sunshine.