Playstation 3 Sales Down, Price Drop Expected in the Coming Months

As the 360 and Wii battle for supremacy, Sony is trailing behind, dusting off its shoulders. Despite a boost from the PS3 Slim launch as well as the arrival of the Playstation Move, Sony’s platform is making less than ideal sales. In a report by Gamasutra, NPD group retail data reveals that while game sales are up, console sales are down. Analysts predict a price cut is in the cards for the console, perhaps as soon as April or June.

The Playstation Move, unfortunately, was not the same success story and sales boost that the Kinect was for Microsoft. The best-selling Move title in January was The Fight: Lights Out, which saw sales of only 16,000.

Meanwhile, sales of Sony’s other platforms are reaching the end of their respective runs. The seemingly impenetrable Playstation 2 has finally drifted into irrelevance, accounting for only 1.5% of hardware sales in January. The PSP is also dwindling, at least in the U.S., with hardware sales down 24% year-over-year.

There is some good news. PS3 software sales have risen, with this month’s release of LittleBigPlanet 2 reporting significantly better sales over the original, with 353,000 total units sold. Sony’s solid line-up of upcoming titles, along with the speculation of another price-drop, could be the formula Sony needs to return to battle, fists swinging.

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