14 DAY TRIAL // In what is probably the most optimistic piece of news I've read in a long time, GameDaily.com reports that most major consoles today are selling better than ever, including Sony's sluggish PS3. That's right, the "pill" for selling the PS3 was indeed a significant price reduction. The Xbox 360 and PSP are also doing quite good, due to similar reasons. However, companies involved with the PS3 have some games to thank for the PS3s sales, according to the same source.
Here's what was revealed in an interview with GameStop's Vice-President and COO, Daniel DeMatteo, according to the upper mentioned site:
"In terms of hardware sales, DeMatteo [Daniel DeMatteo-Vice Chairman and COO] noted that the price reduction on PS3 has doubled their unit sales from the prior sales rate and that 'this sell-through has continued for weeks now.' Moreover, the retailer is bullish on the sales pace continuing thanks to Heavenly Sword and Lair, which DeMatteo said 'will sell well and we believe drive PS3 sales even further.'"
To everyone's surprise, the same thing happened with Microsoft's Xbox 360, which has been longer out in the wild than Sony's PS3. According to GameDaily, "The theme of the call was clearly that price cuts do indeed make a difference. Although the price drop on the Xbox 360 was relatively minor, DeMatteo said that sales for all three SKUs nearly doubled."
And to top it all... "PSP hardware sales have increased almost 50 percent from last year's second quarter due to the price reduction," said DeMatteo as the reporting site posts. DeMatteo explained that "this has caused such demand for the PSP that supply has not caught up." He further commented that they "expect that will abate in September with introduction of several new PSP SKUs."
I can't even remember the last time I heard such good news about more than just one gaming system. Whatever the times, one has to do bad while the other does good. For example, while the Xbox 360 was always more accessible than the PS3, it scratched discs, froze on patch installation or died on users just like that. On the other hand, the PS3 has been a hardware milestone with a very limited failure rate but which unfortunately sported an intangible price. It seems that all the planets have aligned... for everyone. Strange, isn't it?