PS3 sales in the UK drop by an alarming 82%
By John Pospisil
It appears that the UK’s love affair with the Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) was just a brief fling, with UK sales of Sony’s new console dropping by an alarming 82% in the second week after its launch.
The PS3 is the UK’s fastest selling games console ever, having sold around 170,000 units in just two days. However, the high level of demand for the PS3 was short lived, with figures from market research company Chart Track, showing that sales of the PS3 dropped by 82% in its second week of availability.
A Chart Track spokesperson confirmed the figures, telling GamesIndustry.biz that “Yes, sales of PS3 hardware have dropped by 82 per cent.”
It appears that much of the demand for the PS3 in the UK was satisfied in the first week after its launch. That is, just about everyone who really wanted a PS3 went out and bought one. This is also reflected by sales figures of the top selling PlayStation 3 titles, Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm, which dropped by more than 60%.
The big question on everyone’s lips is that now that many of the hard-core Sony fans have got their hands on a PS3, how many other gamers are going to want one?
While it’s still way too early to write off the PS3, even though critics will jump on these sales figures as evidence that the PS3 is doomed, the drop in sales confirms that Sony faces a difficult journey as it tries to reclaim its top position in the ongoing console war.
Having sold more than 110 million PlayStation 2s, Sony has a long way to go with the PS3.
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Tips N4G
April 19th, 2007
Exactly right - In US, Japan and UK now that the fan boys have bought a PS3 - there is no-one else buying - and with the huge lead of XBox360 and its very high and excellent quality software attach rate this must be very worrying for Sony. Already they are cutting staff and dropping the 20 gig model but that may shortshighted in that the price differential is now higher. Interesting also that the Ps2 continues to sell much higher than the PS3 indicating that the PS2 world is quite happy with the PS2 and sees no reasons to upgrade. In fact the PS2 is probably working against the PS3 as is the low end but popular Wii. All in all very very worrying times for PS3 and Sony.