Sony worried by falling PS3 sales?

Sony are claiming that the launch of the PS3 in Europe has been “the biggest consumer electronics sale ever”. An interesting claim if ever there was one. So just how well has it gone for them? Well fortunately a leak of sales figures (which are almost never released to the public) has happened (details here) and these show exactly how well Sony have done. In the UK the sales figures for the PS3 are as follows:

• Week 1 – 165,000 units sold – Sony claim that you can’t buy a PS3 as they have a nationwide sell-out. Interesting as I could have picked up any number of PS3s from various retailers who had plenty on shelves.
• Week 2 – 34,000 units sold
• Week3 – 17,000 units sold

So thats quite a drastic drop in the space of 3 weeks. Although I have to say I’m not surprised. The price point alone is enough to put me off. Couple that with the lack of platform exclusives and I’m happier to be a 360 owner. But if Sony’s “sell-out” claims are to be believed then how come there are consoles available in weeks 2 and 3? Look at the launches of the 360 and Wii. In the weeks after the launch there were very few consoles available through retail channels. Sony may well have the best week 1 figures for a console, however they haven’t created the buzz or demand around the fact that they have sold out. I still couldn’t buy a Wii (if I wanted to) from most stores local to me as they are still out of stock. And look how long they have been on the market. Also, couple this with the fact that so soon after the launch of the PS3 lots of retailers and online stores are now selling the console for less than the RRP of £425 (some stores selling at around £379) and there can only be one reason for this. They need to shift some units.

So should all of this make Sony worried? Well you’d think not to be honest. This is the same trend that they saw in both the US and Japan and so they should have been expecting this to happen in Europe too. However, a report has appeared on Kotaku today (here) stating that Sony may well be “reconsidering its pricing strategy”. If you go and read this as I did earlier today one phrase should stick out like a fox in a chicken run. That is that Sony is trying to address “sluggish sales in Japan and the crucial US market”. So Europe isn’t critical to them any more? Well I guess that became apparent when they pushed the European release date back without moving either of the other 2 territories. I have to say if I was a PS3 owner now I’d be more than a little worried by this. How long will it be before the best games are only targetted at “crucial” markets? I know that PS3 games are region-free, but then look at the fate of Lik-Sang when they sold games for Sony platforms outside of their home territory…