FreshArrival

Holiday Videogame Sales Meltdown Part 3: Sony’s PlayStation Family Struggles

on form thursday, the npd group divulged its report chronicling retail u.s. videogame matriel and software sales during the month of november 2008. considering the nation’s overwhelmingly bitter financial landscape of up to date, the fact that total tournament sales managed a 10 percent year-across-year bag during this crucial sabbatical shopping month seems encouraging, but closer inspection of the figures reveals that not every publisher has work out to lionize. in this second of three parts we look at how microsoft fared. [part 1: nintendo part 2: microsoft]

Sony’s PlayStation family struggles Although the pricey PlayStation 3 appeared to be gaining steam against the Xbox 360 earlier in the year, Microsoft’s September 2008 price cuts have quickly reversed the tide. Sony only managed to move a comparatively meager 378,000 consoles during November, which represents a stunning year-over-year drop of roughly 80,000 units. This decline does appear to be something of a hiccup, however, as the overall U.S. PS3 sales stand at nearly 60% above 2007’s figures. But the PS3 wasn’t the only member of the PlayStation family having a rough time–both the PlayStation 2 (with 206,000 sold) and PSP (421,000) showed diminishing year-over-year returns.

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So what’s going on here, exactly? The fading PS2 sales aren’t particularly shocking considering the console’s age and Sony’s lack of first-party software support. Plus, Sony’s inexplicable resistance to lowering the PS2 to a $99.99 price point continues to confound critics–as it stands, the perceived price of Xbox 360 ($199) is closer to that of Sony’s 8-year-old relic than its current-gen upstart. Slashing the PS2’s price could quickly reinvigorate that sector and give value-conscious casual gamers an even cheaper alternative to the Wii. Despite the PS2’s elder-statesman status, it still managed to vault two games onto the top 20 list: Activision’s Guitar Hero: World Tour charted at #17 and THQ’s latest WWE Smackdown! followed it at #18.

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