US PS3 sales triple in November

Sales of the PlayStation 3 in North America were given a shot in the arm last week by the price cut, and more than tripled during the Thanksgiving holiday week. Sony has informed GameSpot that its newly discounted console saw a 245 percent increase in units sold in the week of November 18-24 compared to the previous week.

Sony asserts that the surge in sales is largely due to the price cut, which was introduced in the US on October 18 for the 60GB model, and the new 40GB model, which was released on November 2. The new prices put the console more in line with the Wii and Xbox 360. The 80GB PS3 costs $499 and the 40GB PS3 $399, compared to $249 for a Wii, and $279 for the Xbox 360 Arcade.

[UPDATE] From the introduction of the 40GB model on November 2nd to November 24, Sony says PS3 hardware sales have increased by a massive 298 percent. Though Sony did not provide is actual sales figures, one can extrapolate an estimate from the three-week period from the October NPD reports, which said 143,000 PS3s were sold in the US (121,000) and Canada (22,000) during the month. That means roughly 107,250 were sold in North America in three weeks last month.

According to Sony, that rate of sale has roughly tripled, so it's likely around 321,750 PS3s were sold in November through Black Friday in North America. If those sales stay constant through the end of the month, then roughly 429,000 PS3s were sold in the US and Canada during the month. That's a marked improvement for the console, which has not sold more than 200,000 units in a single month this year.