Despite of the fact that Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.’s PlayStation 3 video game system is behind Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii in terms of sales, the outgoing president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, David Reeves, said that in three to five years from now the PS3 will dominate the market.

“I don't think it will be next year, but in three to five years it will become dominant on the market. The legacy will be that people will see a tortoise and hare situation. In a way, in the end it will be a dead heat. People will say PS3 took a while to get going but it really caught up very quickly and confounded many of the critics from the first year,” said David Reeves, who retires from Sony on Friday, in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz web-site.

While PlayStation 3 is hardly successful in the USA, it is not considerably behind the Xbox 360 in Europe, primarily because of the loyal buyers and because of the popularity of Sony brand in the region. Still PlayStation 3 is considerably behind Nintendo Wii across all regions.

“When I see the line-up ahead, when I see what's lined up on the new product side, I'm very, very optimistic for what I see for PlayStation's future in the PAL territories,” added Mr. Reeves.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Reeves said almost two years ago that the PS3 would “be far and away the winner by March 2008”. However, it is almost May, 2009, and the PlayStation 3 is still tens of millions of units behind Nintendo Wii.

David Reeves will be replaced by Andrew House, chief marketing officer of Sony Corp.

Tags: Sony, Playstation