Analyst: PS3 10 Percent Ahead of Xbox 360 This Year

While Xbox 360 remains ahead of the PS3 on a global sales basis, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich says that the PS3 is catching up and has a 10 percent lead over Xbox 360 sales so far this year.

"The Xbox 360 does have a 5% lead over the PlayStation 3 worldwide, a minimal difference," noted EEDAR's Jesse Divnich, who goes on to note that, while "the race is neck and neck," the PS3 is winning the battle so far this year.

"If one looks at the total amount of sales through the first 6 months of 2011, the PlayStation 3 has sold about 10 percent more than the Xbox 360, worldwide, so the PlayStation 3 is definitely gaining ground," he told Industry Gamers.

He adds that "the Xbox 360 has increased its velocity without the aid of any price cuts or redesigns over the last year ... The only reasoning that seems plausible is the Kinect or the strength of its software library has reached some sort of tipping point making the Xbox 360 an incredible value to consumers at its current price points."

Analyst Colin Sebastian of RW Baird said that, while Xbox is still holding strong with the launch of Kinect and strong software offerings, “you would never want to count the PS3 out."

"For instance," he says, "if Sony combined a strong first party lineup (e.g. Uncharted/Resistance) with another hardware price reduction, I believe we would see a nice pick-up in unit sales this fall."

While Xbox 360 is outselling PS3 in the US, sales data from Strategy Analytics suggested in April that the global installed base of Sony's console reached 43.4 million at the close of 2010, compared to 42.9 million for Xbox 360.

Source: C&VG