Chart-Track: 82% drop in UK PS3 sales 'doesn't mean anything'
Move along, folks. There's nothing to see here.
Reacting to yesterday's "leak" of PlayStation 3 sales data, which indicated an 82% drop during the week following the UK launch, Chart-Track's Dorian Bloch expresses that we really shouldn't put much that weight in the information his company works so hard to track and calculate. "A figure of an 82% drop has leaked out but that alone means nothing," he tells Next-Generation. "Given how much pent up demand there was for PS3 and given the sophistication of pre-order systems now, it really doesn't mean anything."
Really? Perhaps we read it all wrong then, because the information allowed us to derive some context and conclude that the PS3 had sold an estimated 54% of its available stock (excluding supplemental post-launch shipments) in its second week, down from the 75% in week one. Coupling that with the significant drop in sales indicates, at the very least, that PS3 supply is by far exceeding demand. Furthermore, we estimated that the PS3 had accordingly sold 29,700 systems for the week, a figure which may be compared to the average number of PS3s sold in the last 4 weeks in doubly populated Japan -- approximately 29,552. All that from a single statistic that doesn't mean anything!
Bloch makes a better point when he notes that comparing the PS3 launch to that of the Xbox 360 or the Wii is difficult, considering the shortages that entangled both competing systems during their arrivals. He goes on to say that, "Judging a console based on nine days on sale is just crazy. It doesn't make any sense." Though we suspect the "sellout = success" crowd may be acting unfairly towards the PS3, it certainly isn't enough to warrant downplaying a very significant sales statistic.
What doesn't make any sense? Try the fact that someone like Bloch feels compelled to do damage control while Sony remains tight-lipped.
