European and Australian sales figures released by Sony show that PlayStation 3 has been outselling Microsoft'ts Xbox 360, this despite the cheapest version of the Sony console being priced at just under $600, more than double the price of the Xbox. The numbers may come as a surprise to many, especially as the press had slated Sony for pricing the PS3 so high. The console, according SCEE CEO David Reeves, had sold five million units. The console was released in both Europe and Australia on March 23, 16 months after the release of the Xbox.

One reason for the success could be that Microsoft just hasn't provided gamers with a wider range of games that it originally promised and also because the Sony format and gaming brand has been more widely accepted on the continent of Europe. Another key factor was probably because Sony slashed its game prices before the holidays last year.

Sony also announced that it has sold 12 million PSP's hand held consoles, and 48 million PlayStation 2's. It remains to be seen if the Japanese company can surpass Xbox in North America.

The last hardware sales figures released by NPD in April showed that PS3 sales had reached over 1.3 million units sold in North America.

It looks very much like the new game's on, on Sony PlayStation 3.