PS3 10% ahead of Xbox this year, Xbox on a surge

You'll be used to reading about Wii dominating hardware sales this generation, but which of the other two consoles will, in the end, come in second place?

While Xbox 360 remains marginally ahead of the PS3 on a global sales basis, PS3 is catching up and analysts note its 10% lead over Xbox 360 sales so far this year.

"The Xbox 360 does have a 5% lead over the PlayStation 3 worldwide, a minimal difference," noted EEDAR's Jesse Divnich, While he says that "the race is neck and neck" considering factors such as Xbox 360's higher replacement rate and PS3 being "a tad bit more future proof", he goes on to note that PS3 is winning this year.

"If one looks at the total amount of sales through the first 6 months of 2011, the PlayStation 3 has sold about 10% more than the Xbox 360, worldwide, so the PlayStation 3 is definitely gaining ground," he told Industry Gamers.

But, he later adds, "the Xbox 360 has increased its velocity without the aid of any price cuts or redesigns over the last year ... The only reasoning that seems plausible is the Kinect or the strength of its software library has reached some sort of tipping point making the Xbox 360 an incredible value to consumers at its current price points."

Colin Sebastian of RW Baird suggests that while Xbox is still holding strong with the launch of Kinect and strong software propping it up, he says "you would never want to count the PS3 out".

"For instance," he adds, "if Sony combined a strong first party lineup (e.g. Uncharted/Resistance) with another hardware price reduction, I believe we would see a nice pick-up in unit sales this fall."

While Xbox 360 is comfortably outselling PS3 in the US, sales data from Strategy Analytics suggested back in April that the global installed base of Sony's console reached 43.4 million at the close of 2010, compared to 42.9 million for Microsoft's system.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ox-on-a-surge/