Gaming News

Playstation 2 surpasses Playstation 3 in weekly sales

By Derek Boiko-Weyrauch Feb 2, 2007, 20:38 GMT

Playstation 2 overshadows the Playstation 3 in Japan this week, while the \'impulse buy\' Wii continues to sell like hotcakes.

Sony's Playstation 3 may be setting its sights on Nintendo's Wii in the continuing next-gen console war, but a new competitor has emerged to challenge the cell processor-powered behemoth: Sony's very own Playstation 2. The venerable last-gen console outsold its heir by nearly one thousand units in Japan for the week of January 22-28, racking up 20,955 purchases versus the Playstation 3's 19,996 - according to digital entertainment analyst Media Create.

Several factors came together to make the Playstation 2 more appealing to players, such as its lower price tag, its wider selection of games, and its higher availability. Sales of the Nintendo Wii continue to remain strong, topping 83,000 units during the same period. Despite all of this, several analysts continue to predict the long-term success of the Playstation 3, citing its superior technology. Market research firm Research and Markets even went so far as to predict an install base of 75 million worldwide for the Playstation 3 by 2010, though they do not expect it to meet the success enjoyed by its forebear due to Blu-ray and PAL issues it faced upon launch and the earlier release of Microsoft's Xbox360.

Meanwhile, Sony Computer Entertainment of America spokesperson Dave Karraker went on the record with the New York Times earlier this week to lump the Wii in the same category afforded to supermarket tabloids and packets of M&Ms: the impulse buy.

"Wii could be considered an impulse buy more than anything else," Karraker stated, asserting that the Playstation 3 was in a much different category than the Wii and therefore it was a case of apples and oranges to compare the two. Whether the Wii will win out with this strategy in the long-term remains to be seen, though the impulse buy of that console currently seems to have the edge over the higher price point of the heavyweight Playstation 3.