Sony: Price Cuts Double Weekly PS3 Sales

Sony says the introduction of its new $399 40GB PS3 and a price cut for its 80GB model led a doubling of overall weekly sales for the Blu-ray enabled game console last week.

According to company, a total of more than 100,000 PS3s were sold in the week ending November 11, representing a huge jump compared to the 30,000-40,000 weekly units sold prior to mid October.

"It's the breakthrough we've been anticipating," Sony CEO Howard Stringer told the Associated Press. "We've been holding our breath."

As we've previously reported, although the PS3 is by far the best-selling high-def playback device on the market with 2.3 million units sold since its launch last November (according to VGChartz.com), those sales numbers pale in comparison to lower-priced consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo.

"Obviously, we've taken so much heat over the year on [the] PS3," Stringer told the AP. "Finally, the turning point has been passed."

As for what effect this might have on the high-def format war amidst recent reports of record-breaking sales for stand-alone HD DVD players, Sony's chief marketing officer Andrew House told the AP, "It puts us vastly ahead of where the other format is going to be in terms of an installed base in people's homes by the end of this holiday season."

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