Sony enjoying great PS3 sales in Europe, Australia and America

PS3 boxesTime for a global overview of PlayStation 3 sales.

* ChartTrack has confirmed that 165,000 PS3 units were sold during the console’s launch weekend in the UK. The total UK stock was 220,000 units on day one. The previous top seller record was held by Nintendo’s Wii, which sold 105,000 units after its frantic launch weekend last December. The record before that was held by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 that sold 70,000 at launch in November 2005. While Sony’s four month delayed launch had no production problems, both Nintendo and Microsoft had too little stock at launch and for months after (still, the Wii keeps outselling all others). Thus explaining the difference in sales and why the PS3 is the only launch that hasn’t sold out, because people can buy it later anyway.

* For the whole of Europe the launch weekend PS3 sales have been estimated at 520,000 units by VGcharts. Sony has yet to confirm or deny these numbers, but did announce before launch that one million units would be available on March 23. Update: Sony confirms “600,000 is the figure for Europe.”

* Sony has announced that Australian retailers sold over 20,000 PS3 consoles in the machine’s first three days on sale. “The combined sales of hardware, peripherals and software generated in excess of AU$25 million of retail spending” according to Sony Computer Entertainment Australia who spoke with Screenplay. As a launch day comparison, the Wii sold 32,901 in December 2006 and the Xbox 360 sold 30,421 in March 2006.

Sony PlayStation 3* Meanwhile in America the PS3 is selling faster in its first few months after launch then the Xbox 360 did. Although sales figures from the United States show the PS3 is currently being outsold by its rivals, a spokesman from the US based sales tracker NPD has said: “Figures show that the PS3 is selling slightly faster in the US than the Xbox 360 did at the same stage in its release”. February’s NPD hardware figures showed Wii sold 335,000 units, Xbox 360 sold 228,000 units, and the PS3 sold 127,000 units, meaning it was outsold by Sony’s own PS2 which had 295,000 in sales.

Gartner principal analyst Paul O’Donovan said, “The real issue for Sony is whether they can get back the momentum they had with PS2. The only thing that is going to drive that is the number of PS3 titles available.”