1 Million PlayStation 3s Shipped

The word from Gamasutra is that Sony is boasting 1 million PS3s shipped. They hope to have 6 million units out the door by the end of this year. This came from Sony's CES press conference, which only touched briefly on their new system. Hints were, though, that they'll be rolling out an IPTV system for many of their consumer electronics via the Xross GUI already in use on the PSP and PS3. From the article: "According to the company, the majority of new Sony televisions -- starting with several Bravia flat-panel LCD TVs this spring -- will accept an attachable module that can stream broadband high-definition and other Internet video content with the press of a remote control button. The module will be available this summer, and content will come from sources including AOL, Yahoo! and Grouper, now part of Sony Pictures Entertainment, as well as Sony Pictures itself and Sony BMG - however, none of this streaming video content has yet been confirmed for the PlayStation 3."

1 million shipped

[banuk]

prolly 100k sitting on the shelves, the wii turned out to be more popular in the end

Re:Hmm

[RorthronTheWise]

The year is the *fiscal* year that, for Sony, ends in March

Re:Info....

[zarq]

Have a look at http://nexgenwars.com/ [nexgenwars.com], the numbers on that site appear to be pretty believable.

Misleading Headline

[Dr Kool, PhD]

That's one million PS3s shipped TO THE US and only in 2006. One million does not include consoles shipped after the new year and consoles shipped to Japan at any date.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163828.html [gamespot.com]

Re:1 million shipped

[HappySqurriel]

The playstation did recover from a slow start but it did not have strong competition. When the Playstation was released the main competition was the Saturn and in Japan [vgcharts.org] there was a close battle for a little over 2 years before the overall dominance of the Playstation was ensured; the main reason for this was that in North America [vgcharts.org] and Europe the Saturn was dead on arrival and developers who had an interest in selling games outside of Japan were (essentially) forced to choose the Playstation over the Saturn.

At the same time, the N64 didn't launch until the Playstation had been on the market for 18 months; with this lead time the Playstation was already becomming accepted and had sold over 2.5 Million units in Japan, 1.5 Million in North America and (IIRC) 1.5 Million in Europe and was already becomming the favourite platform of third party developers.

Essentially, it could be argued that the PS3 is launching in an environment similar to the N64 did against the Playstation (where the PS3=N64 and Playstation=XBox 360) and at the same time competing directly against the PS2 (where the Wii is the PS2) ultimately the slow start is far different this time than it was with the Playstation vs. the Saturn.

Re:I'll ship 10 million photos of me

[fistfullast33l]

When will companies start saying how many units were sold, instead of shipped?

You misunderstand how the whole manufacturing chain works. In auto sales it's easy to determine how many cars a company is selling because they control the important end of the chain to determine sales to consumers - car dealerships. Companies like Sony and Microsoft do have their own online stores but the majority of their sales are through retailers that are 3rd parties. Those 3rd parties aren't likely to report sales of a specific product, especially in the timely manner that manufacturers need. So as a result, they're forced to say how many units they've shipped in order to report how strong a product is. The theory is that it's hand in hand with sales since most big-box retailers use Just-In-Time inventory and other methods to keep consoles from piling up. Retailers aren't stupid - if the product isn't selling they won't order it. However, there may be contractural obligations built into sales contracts that says they have to stock so many units or buy in blocks.

This timely manner for sales reporting, by the way, can be blamed on everything from the console war to the fact that Wall Street demands quarterly reporting from public companies.

I should point out ...

[jchenx]

Yet its the only console which will offer true versitility, I get my Gran Turismo,GTA, Tony Hawk, etc... fix and I can play Guitar Hero,Buzz and Singstar with friends. But is it worth £549?

The Xbox360 isn't in the same market, After a year there are almost enough games to make me interested in getting a Xbox360, but the limited hard drive lack of blu ray/HD DVD, crappy expansion slots and most importantly lack of any singstar,buzz,Guitar Hero type of games which puts me off the console.

I should point out that Guitar Hero II, GTA 4, and Tony Hawk, are all coming out on the 360. I totally agree that in the past, games like that are what sold the PS2 over all over consoles. But the age of Sony-exclusive titles appears to be ending, which is great for gamers overall. That is, unless you're a Sony-only fanboy who wants to gloat about having the system with the best games.