Drawing on last Thursday’s NPD Group sales results that revealed a 19 points steep decline for Sony’s sales compared to November 2007, CNN named the company’s PlayStation 3 gaming console a „sinking ship.”

Nevertheless, Sony has informed that their sales for the PS3 gaming machine had increased by 60% since November the previous year, which even factoring in the fact that in 2007 the console was not quite in high demand, should not be taken lightly.

Moreover, Sony’s PS3 has managed to catch up to rival Microsoft’s Xbox 360 during 2008, while the company’s entire line of PlayStations including PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable outran the Xbox 360 in terms of units sold in 2008, with more than 1 million consoles purchased within the year. Microsoft registered sales of 836,000 units for their Xbox 360 machine.

Still, CNN seems to have a very good point when it comes to Sony’s reluctance to reduce the price for their PS3, since even in these times of financial crisis, with sales plummeting in every industry, the company kept the $400 price tag unchanged.

On the other hand, the PS3 is worth its price in terms of features and functionality, Sony’s console main advantage being that it comes with a built-in Blu-Ray drive, which makes it stand out from all the other gaming machines.

For a period, Microsoft used to sell an add-on HD-DVD drive, but it is undeniable that presently, when it comes to optical data storage and especially movies, Blu-Ray has definitely won the battle against DVDs. Furthermore, the features of the aforementioned drive themselves give the PS3 a head start, since it is very easy to update (given that the console is connected to the Internet) and is able to launch the movies stored on it faster and with fewer errors than the other Blu-Ray drives available on the market.

Other capabilities of Sony’s console include an IBM cell processor and an Nvidia graphics processor, which renders the system able to perform 2 trillion calculations per second.

Moreover, unlike Microsoft, which charges Xbox 360 gamers for playing online through Microsoft Live, Sony enables PS3 users to play online without requiring any fee and it also allows them to download games, demos and videos (including movies) via the PlayStation Network. In addition, since the PS3 gaming console complies with the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), players can surf the Internet through the console and also transfer content to the PlayStation Portable gadget.

Finally, Sony recently released PlayStation Home, a next generation social networking website for PS3 owners that allows them to create avatars within the virtual community and interact with other gamers’ avatars, as well.

For the future, Sony plans to render users able to to stream music and video on the service, which will be permanently updated with new games, licensing partners and events, the first of which is set to be a New Year’s countdown ceremony for players.

And even though the Home service will not make many new gamers purchase the PS3 console and thus significantly boost the sales for Sony’s gaming machine, it seems that the gadget is still riding the waves and it will not be sinking soon.