A few points:

1) Remember the headline figures of x consoles sold does not include any returns. One look at the number of PS3 auctions on ebay that didn't make the list price of the console will give you an indication this number could be fairly high.

2) This 'second week' doesn't actually start a week after launch. It was for week ending the 1st of April with the console launched on the 23rd of March. That in turn means you've still got the tail end of the launch on the Monday included in the figures.

3) There is a LOT of stock around and what I can see in-store and on-line I'd suggest that actual demand for the remaining units is not good. As someone mentioned above WH Smiths (a major high street retailer though not a specialist game or media store) has reduced the console to £399 for a week. Virtually all of the major game stores have bundles which actually save more than £5 over list price. On-line deals are even better with Play.com offering the console, a HDMI cable and a copy of Click on Blu-Ray for £399.99. These are not the sort of deals you'd expect for a console that's not even two weeks old in this country, in fact I honestly can't remember the last time I saw this level of discounting so early.

4) There seems to be very little hype with the public. Again, this is based on circumstantial evidence at best but over the last week I've heard at least a dozen conversations which basically came down to "not a chance in hell until they drop the price by a lot". For a Playstation product to be getting that sort of public reaction in the UK really is remarkable as it's a very, very strong brand these days.

To all those whining about "I could have built a better PC for less money", allow me to point something out. A PC consists of the tower AND all the bits you need to have a working PC (excluding monitor in this case although I personally would always include that as a default option). So to take NoHitHair's charming post (#24) as an example:

"Newegg.com
DVD Dual Layer Burner: $31
Mid-Tower ATX Comp Case: $16 low end, $45 high end
320 GB 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s: $115
2 GB Patriot DDR2 800: $150
MSI AM2, 4x240pin, DDR2 800, SLI: $83
550W PS, 85% efficiency, Dual 12V: $90
AMD X2 5200 2.6GHz: $229

TOTAL: $714 - $743

Far more powerful with more space. Do your research next time - printing stories like this really makes you guys look like ignorant asses."

As this poster mentioned a couple of posts later, there's no graphics card included (quite funnt in light of the do your research comment but moving on) so you need to add that to the budget. Then there's a keyboard and mouse, and as this is a gaming machine the mouse at least needs to be decent. But the big killer that it seems everyone forgets is that YOU NEED AN OS! Sorry, but you can't build a PC and then stick pirate software on it. That might be alright for you but you can't put it on the web as a recommended system, as this article from ExtremeTech does, without a legal copy of an OS, and in this case that means Windows as it's a gaming machine.

For everyone saying this is what you get for living in Europe (or words to that effect), this is a major hardware change specifically for the cause of cutting production costs. Nothing to do with being in a different territory whatsoever. That, in turn, means that as soon as possible Sony will be making this change to ALL PS3 units otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever.

As for the state of software backwards compatibility, when even Sony's press release states the PS3 will play "a limited range of PS2 titles" and "a broad range of original Playstation titles" you can pretty much guarantee we're not talking about anything close to 50% as then the word "majority" would have been used. As it is, and based on the fact that there's been zero public acknowledgement of this change before today, the word "limited" tends to suggest a VERY low figure, especially as even the Playstation compatibility only rates a "broad range" of titles. In order words, forget backwards compatibility working on anything other than the launch consoles in Japan and the US for at least the foreseeable future for more than a handful of games.

I know that this is only personal experience and means nothing statistically but on hearing this news two of three people I know who are buying the consoles for themselves promptly cancelled their pre-orders. Why? Because they both have PS2's that are on their last legs and do not want to give up their sizeable game collection on that platform when they switch to PS3. The other individual has moved from the "it will take a pack of wild dogs to prise my PS3 from my cold dead hands" camp into the "If the price on ebay is decent I'll sell if not I might keep it or give it back, we'll see".

*Sigh*

Why is it that people completely ignore the realities of the retail world when coming up with their arguments about why x,y and z will fail if so-and-so company just does a,b and c?

Let's use the wireless wheel for the 360 as an example here. Yes, it's a stunning device and works superbly well. But how many of these units do they actually sell over the course of the lifecycle of the 360? Let's be optimistic and say 1 million. Now assume that you make a game that requires this peripheral to work. How many copies do you think you'll sell? Probably not enough to claw back the development and marketing costs, that's for sure.

The problem exists in every add-on controller ever devised for any system. I would suspect that eye-toy, Buzz and the Guitar Hero controller have sold a LOT of units over the last couple of years but how many games even support them let alone rely on them?

Yes, MS and Sony could introduce a motion sensing controller (although they'd have to get around any patents Nintendo might have on the technology) but even if they include it with the console there'd be at least 10 million 360 owners who wouldn't have it unless they chose to buy it and that's assuming it was launched right now. Then you have to convince developers to code for the thing which, for any property that was designed around the controller, would take, what, at least a year? Then you have to remember that coding something that looked at home on the PS3 / 360 would cost more than the same game on the Wii. Considering that, providing Wii maintains a decent level of interest which looks very likely indeed at this point, Nintendo would probably have a shot at overhauling MS in total sales by Christmas 07 why on earth would developers want to incur extra costs to sell a game to a potentially smaller market?

And even if all THAT doesn't have an impact, consider this: The Wii currently costs about £100 less than the 360 (the premium pack which most people seem to go for). Forget all the pointless arguments about "but Wii doesn't have a hard drive" and the like, this is comparing the most popular 360 SKU with the most popular (and only) Wii SKU. Figure that Nintendo can easily maintain that gap if the 360 drops in price (and if you've just added the equivalent of Wiimote, nunchuck and sensor bar to the box that's not very likely). Why would anyone pick the more expensive console if they want to go with motion sensing gameplay? Killer apps is one argument but I really don't see anyone coming out with stuff to challenge the Ninty first party games.

No, far more likely that the Wii will remain the sole console offering this particular form of control for this generation at least. The 360 and PS3 will gear up to take the more, uh, hard-core gamer and offer the best graphics and on-line service. Nintendo will go down the path already mapped out by the DS and quietly earn bucket loads of cash. Whether they'll achieve the silly sales figures enjoyed by the DS is another matter but who knows? It'll be interesting to see what the impact of a Wii version of Nintendogs would do, or Brain Academy or Animal Crossing or...

Remember folks, just because a particular device doesn't scratch your particular itch, doesn't mean it's not going to find a market...

Speaking as a current 360 owner, I really don't see this as MS 'admitting' they have an inferior product. I'm also not in the least bit annoyed at MS for doing this (and I'd usually be the first to criticise them). Assuming this is real and not a stitch-up for a moment I really don't see anything that's leaving current users "out in the cold".

1) HDMI - yeah, it's a nice option to have but if you've already bought your 360 then presumably you are running it in HD over either component or VGA. The only thing HDMI would bring to the party apart from another connection option is HDCP, which isn't required for the foreseeable future, and upscaling DVD's, which you can already do if you're running on VGA. Everything else, including 1080p, is available through component.

2) Larger hard drive - a bonus to be sure, but it's by no means required. More akin to a price drop than an upgrade really. Besides, if you need the extra space you can always just buy the bigger drive separately. That's assuming it even comes with the console in the first place (I wouldn't bank on it, would make more sense for MS to bundle the 20GB drive and make the 120 available through retail).

3) HD-DVD - nowhere in this story does it even hint that the 360 is getting an internal drive so that's a moot point.

4) Cooler / quieter processor - yeah it's a nice-to-have but again it doesn't bring any additional functionality. Yes, it might very well be quieter but the DVD drive is the main noise source on the 360 anyway so unless they replace that as well there's very little benefit.

To me those reasons add up to a simple point release with some nice bonuses for new owners but nothing whatsoever that leaves existing owners "out in the cold". Anyone suggesting otherwise really needs to take a step back and asses what's actually going to change. As for this being some sort of admission that the 360 is 'inferior' to the PS3, what utter rubbish. This update adds no core functionality whatsoever and the minor revisions it will bring simply add additional bullet points to an already impressive spec list. Now if we want to talk inferior products, let's see if Sony need to release a PS3 with a scaler that actually works or if they can indeed fix it through a software update. I personally hope they can or that really is a kick in the teeth for anyone that bought a first-gen product.

@Brook

You didn't read that article past the headline did you? I quote: "Sales of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) in JAPAN have finally begun to rise". More to the point, check those numbers, 60% increase on the week before for 'over' 50,000 consoles sold. First week was 82,000 and this, the fourth week, is 50,000. Figure that weeks two and three were roughly the same at around 33,000 each based on this data. Let's be generous and add this week at another 50,000 based on production restrictions. That's a grand total of 248,000 consoles in Japan. No wonder they're still hard to find if that's all Sony have shipped in. No matter which way you flip it, for Sony to be on that sort of figure for sold consoles after a month in their home territory is not good news at all. Doubly so when you look at the Ebay prices quoted in that article which show only a (roughly) 10% (£27) markup which would tend to indicate there's not a great deal of urgency to get hold of one of these. By way of comparison most of the UK Wii Ebay deals at the moment seem to be going around the £260+ mark, an increase of 44% (£80) over retail.

Ouch, that's got to hurt Sony, especially with reports of PS3's not exactly flying off store shelves starting to float about. That's definitely NOT the time to be saying that one of the big 2007 exclusive titles isn't going to be quite so exclusive after all. It's also potentially a major blow for the consoles European launch as this was going to be one of THE big titles for the hardcore gamers that'd be looking to pick up a system ASAP.

I think what we're seeing here is conformation of what's been said all along, there really isn't a great deal of difference in outright performance between the PS3 and the 360. Certainly it seems to be fairly easy to port PS3 to the 360 if there's only a few months delay, although I can't think of a major title that's gone the other way off the top of my head (anyone?).

One thing though, am I right in thinking that VF5 isn't going to be on-line for the PS3? If so, I wonder if that 4 month gap (or however long it ends up being) would be enough for MS to throw a basket of money at Sega to incorporate Live multiplayer in time for a summer release? That would be a major kick in the unmentionables for Sony and would more than justify the delay for the 360 version.

Okay, Mr Mendez you're getting annoying purely because your 'maths' is a little divorced from reality. I'm going to do this in UK Pounds simply because I don't really want to go through a dozen US web sites to find prices but the maths holds (and yes, we're more expensive than the US but this includes sales tax):

Cost of PS3 60Gb version (when we finally get it in Europe) - £425

Cost of HDMI cable - £20

Total cost - £445

Cost of Xbox 360 premium version - £280

Cost of HD-DVD drive - £120

Cost of Wireless connection - £30 (if you do the sensible thing, avoid MS's WAY overpriced adapter and just stick a wireless bridge on the back instead)

Total cost - £430

Controllers will be roughly the same for both consoles so we can leave that aside for now. There is an argument to be made for adding Live on to the 360 price, although it's a poor one as we've yet to see just how 'free' the PS3 service will be over the long term, but for now let's do it. That's £40 more for the 360 putting the price up to £470, a £35 increase over the PS3. Ah, but wait, there's a small problem here.

Go into any major retailer and you'll find the 360 is being sold in something called a "bundle". This "bundle" currently consists of Gears of War and at least one other top title (let's say Call of Duty 3) for £40 extra over the stand alone console price. In fact, if you go into Game (UK equivalent of EB) you can get three games for about the same money (last time I looked anyway). But let's go with what you can see for yourself on-line. Total cost of 360 with all the toys plus 2 games, £510. Total cost of PS3 with all the toys plus 2 games (assuming £45 per title) - £535 Oh, and don't forget to add the cost of a remote for the PS3 (it's included with the HD-DVD drive for the 360), so that's say another £20 taking the PS3 up to £555. And no, the PS3 bundles on launch will not knock anything more than £10 off the retail price, they never do.

And here's the thing, you bang on (and on, and on, and on and...) about the PS3 being cheaper, but the fact is the 360 costs you less on the initial purchase as a stand-alone console. As we've just seen, that will actually hold true even when you consider real-world examples of buying a 360 and the extras but even if it didn't the fact remains you pay less for the initial purchase. That allows the consumer to spread the cost, or ignore those elements (next-gen movie formats for instance) that they don't actually need or want. With the PS3 you have to buy everything, whether you want it or not.

Let me put it this way, wireless to me is utterly useless as I have a 4 port wireless bridge as part of my AV setup. I'm not interested in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. I don't play on-line and Live silver membership is enough for me. That, for me, brings the 360 down to £320 including 2 games. A PS3 on the other hand would still run me £535 including two games (but without the remote, I don't need it) and the only real benefit to me is the extra HD space, which wouldn't be used anyway as I stream all my media over the network. That's £210 MORE to buy the PS3 based on my own requirements. That's enough to grab 4 or 5 games (at retail prices, probably 6 or 7 if you go on-line) or (wait for it....) enough to buy a Wii (including wii sports) and Zelda to go with the 360.

As for the original question, for me the PS3 would have to receive a big price drop, have some stunning exclusive content and, most important, beat the crap out of the 360 in multi-platform titles. That last reason is why I have two stacks of games for my Xbox and only 6 individual titles for my PS2 (and two of those are the guitar hero games). The Xbox had the better multi-platform titles when you put them head to head. Right now, Sony have to justify that price gap and so far at least there's nothing at all out there to do so.

Hmm, so let's see, the Toys R Us web site is still out of stock and lists two bundles for sale, the 20gb at $899 and the 60gb at $999. EB Games web site lists two bundles, the cheapest of which is a thousand bucks, and neither of which is available until the 5th of January. Amazon is out of stock and the cheapest private seller is around the $1,200 mark. Sony is out of stock on their web site, as is everyone else who isn't a private seller according to the PS3 locator. Yes, ebay prices have dropped to something less insane but there's still a good $200 mark-up to be made, more if you get lucky and you get a bidding war on your lot.

And yet you found a store that isn't enforcing bundles and that had 8 consoles in stock? Sorry, but it just sounds utterly phony. How about posting a pic of the receipt and pointing us at your e-bay listing?

Why in the name of $Deity are you annoyed at Nintendo? It's only their fault if they didn't deliver the number of consoles they delivered to play.com. If play.com, or any other retailer for that matter, decides to allow more pre-orders than they have been promised on the theory that once a pre-order is placed they can delay it until the next batch and have a good chance of still making the sale, that's nothing to do with the manufacturor.

As for selling direct, do you know ANY manufacturer of consoles that does this? If Nintendo allowed pre-orders through their own web site for the wii they'd generate a huge amount of negative feeling from retailers who would consider it as taking 'their' sales and thus depriving them of a bug chunk of their profit margin.

Basically, what Sony did in the US (delivering half as many consoles as promised) can be considered a screw-up by the manufacturer. If it comes out that Nintendo shipped far fewer consoles than promised then blame Nintendo for you not getting your console. However, if it's play.com screwing you over (and they did the same thing with the X360 launch last year, took a ridiculous number of pre-orders then failed to delver. In fact they've got a bit of a reputation for this with major launches I'm sorry to say) then direct your frustration at them. Considering other retailers (argos, woolworths etc) seem to be getting pretty damn close to filling all their pre-orders and Amazon actually had a few for sale yesterday to the general public I know where I'd be pointing the finger.