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."

Re:1 million shipped

[HappySqurriel]

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

The interesting thing is that Sony said:

" ... United States up to the end of 2006, still promising 6 million worldwide by the end of March 2007."

So over the next 3 months Sony plans to ship an additional 3.5 Million PS3 systems. Now if you were to assume 1 Million units for Europe that still means that 2.5 Million PS3 systems have to be shipped to North America and Japan over the next 3 months. Personally, I wonder how many of these systems will just end up sitting on the shelf or in a warehouse being that Q1 is always the slowest quarter of the year for game sales and PS3 demand seems to be (far) lower than was (initially) expected. I'm not trying to bash Sony, but in most years it is pretty impressive if 6 Million units of all systems combined get sold in Q1 in Japan and North America.

Re:1 million shipped

[UbuntuDupe]

No one will have "Won" or "Lost" until sometime in 2008 but (as far as I know) no company has recovered from a poor start when there was strong competition

What about the original Playstation? From what I remember, it had a slow start, in an environment where there were lots of competitors using CD media, but gradually won out.

Unsold means loss as costs decrease too!

[failedlogic]

Amid concerns that some of the consoles are just "sitting" on the shelves, I'm sure that this is posing an addtional loss for Sony.

I say this because I'm sure they get better prices for parts on a Quarterly on Monthly basis. If something didn't sell which you didn't have to produce and your cost goes down = loss.

I also wonder if there is lower adoption because the higher quality Blu-Ray (and who "wouldn't" want it to play movies) really needs an HDTV to take full advantage of the system. This means system price + cost of HDTV. Ditto for X360.

Aside but relevant:
I don't know about most /.'ers but I'm 26. I've played a fair number of video games. I've had a Gamecube and PS2 for over 3 years now. Only three games on the console have "wowed" me to the point I wish all games were like it: Zelda Wind Waker, Metal Gear Solid 2 and MGS3. Otherwise, all games to me, are now boring, repetitive, not story driven and/or too time consuming (don't have time for RPGs anymore). Sorry to say to the console makers and I think I'm not alone: part of my demographic won't shell out mega-bucks when we have rent to pay when all the games look, feel and play the same! And I'm not buying a PS3 just for MGS4 (might rent to play it). And time wise I don't think I'm buying a Wii (I already have a better one anyways ;) )

Re:1 million shipped

[tuffy]

At the time of the Playstation's launch, the Sega CD, CD-i, Turbo Duo, 3DO and Jaguar were all either dead or dying in the market. The Neo Geo kept on churning out 2D fighters at the arcades, but never had any impact on the home systems. That leaves the Saturn which launched a few months earlier, but was $100 more expensive with a weak 1st party lineup and increasingly disinterested 3rd parties.

It didn't take long for the cheaper, easier-to-develop, 3D-focused Playstation to catch on.

From my personal experience.

[Churla]

I had not really bought into the idea of "needing" a next gen console. I predominantly game on the PC. The day after x-mas I'm at a friends house for Poker and the wife goes into the other room and plays on the Wii they picked up. I am immediately informed that this device is on the "must acquire NOW, why didn't you get me one of those for xmas?!?!?" list.

So after xmas I start a ritual on my remaining vacation of checking stores around the DFW area for a Wii. Took a week and a day before I scored one (at a WalMart) and ever place I checked I got a familiar refrain...

"We have no Wiis in, we aren't sure when we'll get more. But we have these PS3's , wouldn't you like one of those?"

I also don't hear buzz amongst friends who have xbox 360's or PS3's about one game or the other, but everybody I know with a Wii raves about how much fun they are. I would say the leader out of the gates for this holiday is the Wii, with Xbox 360 out in front due to getting an early (by MONTHS) start.

Add in that Sony loss leads with the cost of production of the console being above retail. but Nintendo makes a profit on every console and you have a strange formula which actually says Nintendo is doing better. But I'm sure Sony will save the day for themselves with some well though out proprietary product that uses a standard or media format which they are the only really proponents of. That's how it works, right?

Re:It only takes a couple good games.

[twistedsymphony]

I'd have to disagree with that... after the initial excitement of getting a Wii wore off I've been quite bored with it. Zelda is a great game but quite similar to the experience I had on the N64 titles, Not to mention after playing the GC version, I'd rather use that controller if only for a better camera. Red steel is a terribly generic shooter thats only interest is in it's controller interface, which is so buggy it's horrible to play. Trauma Center is a cool title but it's identical to the DS version save a couple of newly added levels, Monkey ball, pretty much the same as the GC and Xbox versions I've already played, Excite Truck and Wii sports are fun for an hour or two with friends but they become quite boring after that... there just isn't enough depth to them beyond their initial impression. Elebits looks interesting but I haven't played it yet so I can't really comment on that title.

When you look at the 360 it's got Gears of War which is a very fresh shooter the game play is quite different and very unique in comparison to the many other shooters I've played, in terms of multiplayer/co-op the game has enough depth to provide much lasting appeal. Also Viva Pinata gets my pick for the most innovative game this holiday, it's what I'd image the results would be if Nintendo made Spore. Then of course there are older titles like Dead Rising which is akin to the melding GTA, Resident Evil, and Shenmue... and Test Drive Unlimited (the first MMO Racer).

Honestly I played nothing but the Wii for most of December, I wouldn't consider most of the games all that innovative, particularly as someone who's owned all of Nintendo's consoles. So far the games that truly utilize the Wii remote are horribly shallow and don't serve as much more then a way to impress your friends for an hour, other games that have the necessary depth that you'd expect from a modern game don't use the Wii remote in any real unique ways, they just replace pushing the analog stick with waving the remote around.

The Potential is there, and I'm excited to see what will come out in the next year or so but as of right now, the Wii is collecting dust and I've started playing the 360 again, the controller might not be anything new but the current crop of games are far more interesting in my opinion.

Wii vs. PS2

[tepples]

How does selling 35% as many consoles constitute being "neck and neck" is sales?

Because PlayStation 2 Slimline is still selling like hotcakes.

Re:Wait a sec...

[tepples]

This is a PS3 story? Then why are you still using the PS2 controller as a logo?

Because the basic shape of the PlayStation family controllers hasn't changed since the Dual Shock was introduced back in the mid-PS1 era.

Re:1 million shipped

[be-fan]

We have a good idea that the CPU and GPU are very similar architecturally to their predecessors. If Nintendo really had made extensive changes to the chips, they would've done things like boost the amount of 1T-SRAM on the system. The fact that they boosted the amount of external DDR instead indicates that they didn't try to muck with the memory controller to much. The fact that they didn't enlarge the EDRAM on the GPU indicates that they worked on the GPU die conservatively, not wanting to change the load-store pipeline too much.

So while it's possible that certain effects on the Wii are much faster, I'd still say it's a stretch to call the console much more than twice as fast when it still basically has the same design. And of course 2x the raw theoretical power (which would be achieved if they increased the clock by 50% and say increased the number of pixel pipelines by 50%) still doesn't translate into anywhere near 2x the actual performance.