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PSP, PS2 Sales Skyrocket
Spurred by the scarcity of the PlayStation 3, hungry consumers are buying all the PSP and PS2 units they can get their hands on. The PSP's sales have shot up by 280 percent over last year, while the PS2 was up a respectable 115 percent. From the Eurogamer article: "Additionally, sales of first-party software are also up, according to SCEA. PS2 game sales rose by 120.6 per cent, with PSP software sales increasing by almost 168 per cent. Sony has yet to publish figures for exactly how many PlayStation 3 units have been sold in North America since the console launched there on 17th November."
I was walking through the local Fry's last night and was wondering why they were stacking the PS2s in the main walkway. Seemed to me there might be a more popular item to stick in the high traffic areas, but maybe they were sold out of everything else.
I think you overestimate the demand for new consoles (not just the PS3), this is the sales numbers for 2006 up to (and including) October
Now, the Nintendo DS was being outsold by the GBA until they released the DS lite
The fact is that most people buy a system really late in its life, and that all those people who bought a Playstation since 2000 may now be starting to upgrade to the PS2. Most of the time we think of how average (or below average) our income is compared to everyone we know, when you actually compare your household income to the mean you'd probably find out that you were quite wealthy (the mean household income in Canada is $50,000 meaning that 50% of households make less than that; I expect that the US is very similar). Half of consumers aren't questioning whether they should 'upgrade' to a HDTV, they're thinking whether they should replace their 20 year old 20 inch TV with one of those fancy 32 inch CRT TVs.