If there is one thing Sony is good at is putting out the spin before the shit hits the fan.  Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer has come out and stated the PS3 sold 200,000 units the last week of November in the US.  Along with the news that the PS3 has been selling better in Japan and Europe since the last price cut, is being heralded that the PS3 is now a real contender and several articles have come out proclaiming that the PS3 will surpass the Xbox 360 and Wii this generation.  In fact one analyst has speculated the Xbox 360 sales will tail off and the Wii and PS3 will be in a dead heat by the year 2011.

Now considering the PS3 just got out sold by over 500K units by the Wii and 300K units by the XBox 360 in North America last month I don't think the PS3 is on the comeback.  Not in the largest gaming market in the world it isn't.  The price cut for the PS3 might salvage the PS3 in Japan and Europe but it was a large thud in the US. 

We still need to see how well sales cut will improve PS3 sales elsewhere.  After the 1st price cut the sales improved for the month of the price cut but then dropped back down to where they were before.  So far in Japan that hasn't happened but we won't know for sure until after the holiday season.

Now for those of you that don't listen to the gaming podcasts and read all the hard core gamer blogs  the battle cry of the PS3 fan boy has been "wait till Holiday 2007" because that will be when the battle is won.  Of course this was several months ago when people thought Metal Gear Solid 4 and maybe Final Fantasy 13 would be arriving on the PS3 in Holiday 2007.  They also thought that War Hawk, Heavenly Sword and the Ratchet & Clank games would not be the flops they turned out to become. 

Now those fan boys are saying wait till Holiday 2008 assuming those titles that missed Holiday '07 will be out and other games like Haze and Little Big Planet come out.  Well there is no telling if Haze or Little Big Planet will be flops or console movers.  It is also uncertain if Metal Gear Solid 4 or Final Fantasy 13 will be PS3 exclusive by the time they actually come out. 

The fact is the Wii is doing absolutely wonderful and if Nintendo make more units they would sell more units.  The Wii is doing better than any other console ever made.  It's sales are through the roof.  The only question is when will the bubble pop? 

It has already been rumored that Nintendo will pull it's holiday ads because they will significantly fail to meet customer demand in December.  In fact it looks like they might sell less in December than in November which is a huge blunder for Nintendo.  When Microsoft looks to sell 2 million Xbox 360 in December world wide you need to be able to manufacture more than 1.8 million units a month.

The Xbox 360 is going to give Microsoft their best holiday season ever.  They have sold over a million copies of Halo 3, Mass Effect, Guitar Hero 3 and Call of Duty 4 in the 4th quarter alone.  Microsoft will sell over 4 million consoles world wide in the 4th quarter. 

Unlike Sony, Microsoft made their sales goal last year this time to ship 11 million consoles.  Sony now is projecting they will not meet this same total in March of next year.  It will take Sony 3+ more months to reach that goal than it did for Microsoft.  By then Microsoft's lead on Sony will be too large for them to overcome. 

Microsoft will most likely cut the price of the Xbox 360 next Spring dropping the price to compete with the Wii.  I seriously doubt Sony can afford to cut the price of the PS3 again to keep up with the 360.  This price cut will cause an additional sales boost to the Xbox 360 and with games like Halo Wars, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2 out in Holiday 2008 Sony will not stand a chance against the more affordable Xbox 360.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/playstation-3/sony-selling-200k-ps3s-a-week-in-europe-but-may-miss-targets-332569.php
http://economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10251308
blogs.cnet.com/8301-13506_1-9832294-17.html