Sony’s (SNE) “super slim” PlayStation 3 is off to a good start despite the console’s price actually increasing. According the MCV, Sony saw a 138% increase in PlayStation 3 sales with the release of its smaller, lighter game console in the United Kingdom. What’s more, MCV says that the 500GB model also accounted for 37% of all PlayStation 3 sales last week, which is particularly impressive since the slimmer model was only released this past Friday.
Sony currently has plans to launch a PlayStation 3 with 12GB of flash storage in Europe on October 12th, so it will be interesting to see how well the PS3 performs once Sony starts targeting the low-end market that has been fulfilled by the 4GB Xbox 360 and Wii over the last several years. Sony’s PS3 currently trails behind the Wii and Xbox 360 in global sales, according to VGChartz, a website that keeps track of how many units each game system sells.
The new PS3 could push Sony ahead of Microsoft (MSFT) in the console war. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is currently ahead of the PS3 by about 1.9 million units sold worldwide. The Wii still maintains the top spot with 96.6 million consoles sold to date.