Executives at Sony's games division may not be carried away by last month's PlayStation 3 sales data but they could be forgiven a wry smile at the first good news for many years.

After bleeding red ink for seven consecutive quarters, the performance of the PS3 in November could prove the catalyst for a strong holiday season for Sony Computer Entertainment. For the first time since its launch, sales of the PS3 last month surpassed those of Nintendo's Wii in Japan, primarily because Sony introduced a 40-gigabyte model for Y40,000 ($360) and slashed prices on older models.