The November NPD Group report showing the increased gap between PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sales started a tidal wave of imminent doom predictions for Sony’s console. It’s almost become trendy to offhandedly say that yeah, the PS3 is history, they should have dropped prices, I mean look at the Wii going – and other such things. On GamesIndustry.biz, Wedbush Morgan analyst Morgan Pachter takes a more reasonable look at PlayStation 3’s problems and future.

He does agree that the price difference between Sony’s console and the Xbox 360 contributed to the slowing down of PS3 sales this holiday season. But he also talks about the HD factor, something which few bothered to consider. “We believe that PS3 sales are being impacted by lower demand for HD televisions as a result of the recession,” the analyst said.

Also, Microsoft did manage to put together a cheaper and more attractive package – a low price console and two free games – in a season where people hunt for any price reduction they can get.
But all this doesn’t mean that the PlayStation 3 is down in the mud with few hopes to ever recover. Pachter predicts that the number of PS3 units sold will register a gradual boost in the first half of 2009. Because the Blu-ray is slowly but surely gaining ground in consumers’ minds and there are also some eagerly awaited exclusive titles for the console (i.e. LittleBigPlanet).

Anyway, it seems like November’s buying fever will spread to December as well. According to Pachter, this month will bring a goodly number of hardware sales, again, in spite of the recession: “...we think that as Nintendo increases Wii supply further, Sony markets Blu-ray, and Microsoft rolls out its New Xbox Experience, hardware sales will show year-over-year increases in December.”

This Christmas definitely looks like it’s going to be one in 3D.