PlayStation 3 Outselling the Xbox 360 in Australia

Sony is really pushing hard for numbers to prove that the PlayStation 3 is just as competitive as the Xbox 360 from Microsoft when it comes to gaming consoles sales. Recently, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, David Reeves, claimed that the absolute sales of the PlayStation 3 were better than those of the Xbox 360 on the European market, and now it seems
that good news on the sales issue is coming from Australia as well.

Sony Managing Director Michael Ephraim has talked to PALGN about the situation Down Under and he reckons that, even though Microsoft still has the lead in units sold, overall Sony can still catch up and overtake in the console race. Even if the Xbox 360 has achieved very good market penetration in English speaking territories in general, including North America and the United Kingdom, the Australian market is much more balanced. Ephraim thinks that at some point, "somewhere around the end of the year, if not sooner," the PlayStation 3 has a shot at overtaking the Microsoft made console.

Being able to claim victory over an entire continent would translate into a boost for Sony, even if we are talking about a rather small market, when compared to Europe, Japan or the United States. However, the numbers advanced by the Sony man are in-house estimates of sales, so there might be a bit of a difference between these and the numbers reported by some market watching analysts.

Ephraim said: "I can tell you in the first quarter of 2008 we have outsold Xbox 360 by around 45%. That is not including the Bravia deal, which moved through around 30,000 units, so if you add the Bravia deal to our global sales we have now, in the first quarter of 2008 we have outsold the Xbox 360 by two to one." Take that with a pinch of salt, if you will, but Australia seems like a good battleground for Sony, one where it is winning the "console war".