Product Mini Profile PlayStation 3 Hardware in: Sony Playstation 3 links » user reviews

As a disclaimer: I'm not a fanboy; I like all consoles. 'Kay? 'Kay.

As reported on earlier in the year, and as most gamers probably know, Sony was doing pretty crap there for awhile with the PlayStation 3. The most glaring turn-off for would-be customers was the whopping $600 price tag, which really, makes the current, roughly $400 one (depending on the model) seem pretty appealing in comparison. More than that, the games pretty much sucked, and nobody had a clue about Blu-ray. And in all fairness, Sony didn't really do much to help its situation, delaying Home and all. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if it dropped out of the race this time around like the Dreamcast did back when (R.I.P.!), that's just how bad it seemed. But, astonishingly enough, Sony has pretty much patched everything up, and there are numbers (and games) to prove it.

Example: last year EA took in $13 million from PS3 sales. For a giant like EA, that's petty cash. This year? $139 million. Good lord. What the hell happened! Anyway, it's proof, I think, that it takes a lot longer than most of us probably thought until it's too late to turn things around, and that this generation is moving a lot slower than those past, though this is not necessarily a bad thing and probably brings its own positives.

More numbers: global PS3 sales jumped to 1.56 million units over the last financial quarter, an increase of over 120% over this time last year, and sold nearly 260k more units than the 360 (though, of course, one factor must be Microsoft's system being out a year earlier). According to the charts, the Wii has now sold 30m worldwide, the Xbox 360, 20m, and the PS3, 14m. Personally, I wouldn't have expected it, but the handhelds are destroying everything else: the DS has sold 78m, while the PSP is doing great in its own right at 37m. This effectively means more people have a DS than all non-handheld consoles combined. Yeesh.

Now while the Wii is devouring everything in its path with a relentless and voracious appetite -- okay, totally kidding. But the Wii did sell about four times as many units (5.2m) as Sony's console during the same quarter. Nevertheless, they're in the same ballpark, and considering the situation before, that's impressive. This also signifies the real start of things, where every console maker has now hit its stride.

Especially with the already great list of games released this summer for all platforms, and another hefty lineup slated for the fall, gamers have a lot to be happy about, and so does the PlayStation 3.

(Happy 2008, Sony!)