PS3 Sales To Overtake Xbox 360 In 2011? News

TVG research has shown that at each console's current rate of growth, sales of PlayStation 3 units will overtake those of the Xbox 360 in January 2011 according to sales figures published by Microsoft and Sony to-date.

Since being launched in November 2006 (March 2007 in Europe), the PS3 has tallied 24.6 million units according to Sony's latest fiscal report, whereas Microsoft has sold 30.2 million Xbox 360s since its launch in November 2005.



When we plotted these sales against a line of best fit and extended that line to project a 10-year lifecycle for each console, the PS3's sales overtook the Xbox 360's in January 2011, approximately five years into the current-gen lifecycle.

Graphs showing these extended sales projections can be found here for the PS3 and here for the Xbox 360.

While this is merely an estimation of future sales according to current sales trends, it does nonetheless reveal that Sony has been selling PS3s at a faster rate than Microsoft has Xbox 360s. This is despite higher total sales for Microsoft's console, which are the result of a one year head start on the market.

Future price cuts for each console, changing market factors such as HD adoption, and unreleased technology (e.g. Project Natal and the PS3 Slim) will no doubt alter current growth rates in the future months and years. Nonetheless, our findings do fly in the face of currently accepted wisdom in the industry.

Find out more in our Console Wars: 7th Generation feature.