Editorial: Is the momentum of the "console war" turning?

*This editorial ignores Nintendo as Wii does not factor here.*

If you believe sites like VGChartz, you'll be in for quite a shock, for the period between 9/12/2007 and 30/12/2007, the PS3 outsold the 360 worldwide.

PlayStation 3 - 2,081,432
XBox 360 - 1,894,335

Even a few months ago, this would have been incomprehensible, but what can the reasons for this be?

XBox 360 clearly had the strongest line up, with the likes of Halo 3, Bioshock and Mass Effect, while PS3 managed to get Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Ratchet and Clank from a few months ago.

However, Microsoft will be scratching their heads wondering what went wrong as their sales have now slowed, from 10,000,000 before 2007, to just over half of that last year, in the face of competition from Sony. In fact, sales have slowed so much, the 360s only remain lead seems to be in the US.

I have a few theories as to what went wrong for Microsoft in 2007.

It could just be something as simple as the graphical difference from a year ago are gone and only bad devs remain. First party games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Ratchet & Clank, as well as third party games, like Call of Duty 4, prove that developers are getting to grips with the PS3 hardware.

The price difference is almost eliminated, the cheaper PS3 SKUs now offer better value (something Microsoft had been touting as a major element to their console), with Blu-ray player, Wi-fi, free online play and user upgradable hard drive.

The rumours have also switched, while previous PS3 exclusives were rumoured or went multiplatform, it's now 360 games like Bioshock and Mass Effect that are rumoured to go to PS3 and the only retaliation is vague rumours from XBox fansites about MGS4.

The PS3 has few hardware problems (bar fake news generated from questionable sources that are then forced to retract), while the RRoD issue still exists. This has no doubt put off many potential buyers who have maybe now picked up a PS3 instead because of the reliability factor. The cost for extending the warranty for 360s has more than likely killed any chance Microsoft have of making any profit this gen.

And now, there's rumours of a 360 SKU that is basically a PS3. (The new rumoured 360 is said to include an HD-DVD drive, Wi-fi built in, 320GB hard drive amongst other features.) The problem with this SKU is that Microsoft will either have to drastically drop the price of the current SKUs or risk having this new SKU costing a lot more than the PS3. This is based on the current price of the Elite and the extra features.

The biggest problem Microsoft faces are the PS2 owners who now may be ready to upgrade. They didn't buy a PS3, but they also didn't buy a 360, and if franchises they enjoyed are going to appear on PS3, then it will cause Microsoft problems all through 2008, especially now that PS3 is holding its own, even with Microsoft's AAA line-up. Game-wise, 2008 belongs to Sony.

This isn't to say that Sony hasn't faced problems, but unlike Microsoft who seem to be creating problems, Sony seem to be genuinely trying to resolve the issues.

Now, that's not to say it's all bad for Microsoft, Halo 3 has seen phenomenal sales (something like 50% of 360 owners have Halo 3) and many games have sold well into the millions. They also seem to have a tight grip on Bioshock and Mass Effect.

However, the momentum is slowly switching in favour of Sony. In Europe, it's PlayStation, not Nintendo, that is synonymous with gaming and the world wide sales figures reflect better on Sony than the US figures ever could. If Sony even picks up the pace slightly in America, 2008 is going to be a grim year for Microsoft overall.