Sony always had their Playstation brand name to build on, with so many PS1 and PS2 owners from the past they were always guaranteed to attract a lot of them to eventually buy into the PS3.

The 360, being from a US company was always going to sell well in the US. But with all the overheating and RROD issues plaguing the platform it really put a lot of people off.

Also worth mentioning is that the Playstation 2 is also still in production, now going for 11 years! And it recently became officially the best selling console of all time. Selling over 147 Million as of September 2010, so it must be even higher now. Even the Nintendo DS hasn't sold that many units. And even the original Playstation ended up selling over 102 Million! Very impressive stuff. Compare the PS2's sales figures with the next best selling 6th gen console, the Xbox, and you can see the dominence Sony commanded. The Xbox sold a total of 24 million. That does actually make Microsoft's turn around and sales figures for the 360 very impressive. They just managed to get it to market far enough ahead of Sony to give it a technological advantage to make gamers want it.