Microsoft: PS3 is haemorrhaging at retail

Following another bumper month at North American retail, Xbox 360 product manager Aaron Greenberg has stated that the Xbox 360 continues to exceed the company’s internal expectations – and that PS3 is consistently failing to meets Sony’s.

[The 53 per cent year-on-year rise] exceeds even the high end of what analysts projected we would do for the month,” he told Gamasutra. I think the highest I saw was roughly 30 per cent. We’ve had multiple months now of sustained year over year growth, which is fantastic.”

We have over 130 titles rated over 80 on Metacritic. No other platform even has 100 at that level.”

In addition, Greenberg spared time for a dig at rival Sony, criticising its continued high price point at retail. You can’t underestimate that we’re half the price of the PS3 at a time when consumers were looking for great value.

The PS3 was down in February two per cent even with the launch of Killzone 2 – that’s months of year-over-year declines. Xbox continues to head north while the PS3 is heading south. We’re gaining share.

But what we hear from our partners is that it’s not just PS3, it’s also PS2 down 62 percent year over year. With that business declining, and with the PS3 business declining, it’s been described to me as haemorrhaging at retail right now, and it just keeps getting worse.

What we’re finding in our research is that a large portion of the volume we’re driving with Xbox 360 purchasers is actually PS2 owners choosing Xbox for the next generation. We’re switching people from the PlayStation brand over to the Xbox brand.”