Despite how much everyone says they hate Bill Gates, and how all his products are bugged, there still seems to be some sort of patriotic pride associated with console buying.
i think, in the US market's ps3 vs 360 battle, a lot has to do with two larger facts: 360 was (significantly) cheaper, and 360 had an 11 month head start. by the time playstation 3 launched, xbox already had a year's worth of software.
thats a similar advantage ps2 had over its competition in the previous generation, and while that wasn't their only advantage, that portion clearly worked out well for them.
in this gen, nintendo almost took itself out of competition in the fact that it, simply put, wont have the same games as the other two. its a different experience, for better or worse. 360 and ps3 are pretty similar to the average consumer. similar abilities, similar titles, similar features, etc. so price point and software balance was significant.
in europe, ps3 and 360 price points were closer together, with a cheaper ps3. production of the 360 was also slower to europe than the states -- both of those contributed to sales being more balanced over there.
in japan... thats a whole different world.
xbox is basically hated. the first one was too large, the controllers were enormous, and many of the most popular games for it were first person shooter types -- traditionally, a very unpopular japanese title. plus, throw in a little "who the fuck do these americans think they are" and boom, the system will never sell.
msoft did their best this time around in japan, but really the deck was stacked so heavily against them, it was always going to be an uphill battle. even some of the long-standing japanese developers made statements of disappointment about japanese consumers becuase there were some great games available, but they still refused to buy.
