Sony CEO: PS3 'out of the woods'

On January 17, the NPD Group reported its final US game-industry sales figures for 2007, which provided more ammunition for console-war partisans in the form of hard numbers. For the year, the Nintendo Wii sold 6.29 million units (7.38 million lifetime to date [LTD]), the Xbox 360 sold 4.62 million units, (9.15 million LTD), the PlayStation 2 sold 3.97 million units, (41.12 million LTD), and the PlayStation 3 sold 2.56 million units (3.25 million LTD).

While Sony disparagers took the figures as evidence that the PS3's fate was sealed, NPD's December figures showed the console's sales jump. The $100 October price cut of the 80GB PS3 and the November introduction of the $399 40GB PS3 helped holiday sales of the console shoot up to 797,600 units domestically--331,600 more than the month before.

Following NPD's report, analysts debated how much the PS3's rise could be attributed to frustrated Wii-seekers going with plan B and how much was rising enthusiasm for the console. Unsurprisingly, Sony Corp. CEO Sir Howard Stringer thinks it's the latter and talked up the console's fortunes to the Reuters news service while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"PS3 has now gone past Xbox [360] on the Christmas market," he said, referring to the console's robust European sales. "It's moving into its own as it gets into higher bandwidth...PS3 is out of the woods and beginning to hold its own."