Yesterday we got Sony Australia’s Managing Director Michael Ephraim on the blower to talk about how GTA IV’s blockbuster release had affected the company’s console sales. He had just received the sales information for the week following April 27 from Australia market research specialists GFK, and confidently told us that, on a console level, PlayStation 3 had outsold Xbox 360 2 to 1.

“The week of launch, GFK showed that PS3 outsold Xbox, the other format that GTA was on, by over two to one.”

Also interesting were Mr. Ephraim’s comments regarding the sales of the game itself. While we argued that Sony would triumph on consoles sales, we had expected the Xbox 360 to shift a greater number of games than its competitor due to the sheer difference in the install bases. And a press release issued by Microsoft late last week trumpeted this victory, with Xbox Product Marketing Manager Jeremy Hinton claiming “the exclusivity of the downloadable content combined with our excellent Xbox LIVE online experience drew more Australian gamers to the Xbox 360 to play Grand Theft Auto IV.”

However, Mr. Ephraim believes there is more to the picture: Electronic Boutique (EB) represents 70 percent of Australia's games retail market but is not included in GFK statistics. Steve Wilson, the MD of EB, told Mr. Ephraim that the PS3 SKU outsold the 360 SKU in EB stores across Australia. Had these results been included in GFK’s figures then Microsoft may not have been able to claim that victory.