Sony Ships 2 Million PS3s, May Still Miss Goal

Despite the news (at Gamasutra) that Sony has already shipped 2 Million PlayStation 3s, Next Generation reports that analysts are still doomcasting Sony's early next-gen efforts. The Japanese investment firm Nomura is now saying they expect Sony to be able to ship approximately 4.5 million PlayStation 3 units by the end of the fiscal year in March. This is only 75% of the company's stated goal. From the article: "Despite early manufacturing issues and a subsequent European delay, Sony has maintained that it will still ship 6 million PS3s worldwide by the end of its fiscal year. The company recently said that it met its goal to ship 1 million units in North America by the end of calendar year 2006. NPD Group reported last week that the console sold 490,700 units in the US in December, with 687,300 sold life-to-date in the region." I think it's still a mite early to say what's going to be happening in March, but there are a lot of unhappy investors listening to these reports right now.

So what?

[the computer guy nex]

I went to purchase the newest Warioware game for Wii last night and saw a half dozen PS3's sitting on the shelves of my local Best Buy.

Who really cares how many consoles have been "shipped" ?

Re:Shipping more?

[nonsequitor]

*lowers voice to whisper* Those are display boxes, they don't actually have a console inside of them.

Here we go again

[Itchyeyes]

I'm amazed at how people still don't understand the concept of "shipped" units and how it pertains to sold. The vast majority of units sold will be sold through retailers using something called just in time inventory. They monitor how much of a product they have and how fast it is being sold and and use that to calculate when they will need to order more of a product and how much of it to order. If consoles are sitting on shelves then retailers aren't ordering any more from manufacturers. There is a small amount of lag there, but over the long term the method is plenty accurate (notice how nobody is comparing shipped PS2 units to sold PS2 units even though there are probably ten times more PS2's than PS3's sitting on shelves). The margin of error is negligible.

For console manufacturers shipped is sold. Since they have no control over the retail chain, their most accurate measurement of how consoles are selling is how many they are selling to retailers. This endless discussion over shipped vs sold is just plain ignorant. It's a perfectly acceptable method of tracking your inventory.

Re:Prize For Best Made Up 'PS3 On Shelves' Story

[greenrom]

Ten bucks off your next Xbox 360 defective unit replacement fee for the Xbot with the best and most inventive 'I saw unsold PS3s' story!

You might want to adjust your prize. Right now the defective unit replacement fee is $0. I bought a 360 at launch in November 2005. I think it was supposed to have a 90 day warranty. Last week mine started locking up after a few minutes of playing it. I think a fan quit. Anyway, I called Microsoft and they're replacing it for free even though it's over a year old. The phone rep said that they're currently treating all 360 units as if they were under warranty no matter when the unit was purchased. Maybe they have a design defect. Maybe they're just trying to compete with better customer service. Either way, I was happy.

I don't have a good "PS3 sitting on shelves" story, because I haven't seen any so I guess I wouldn't win the prize anyway. There really haven't been enough PS3s shipped to gauge demand. I don't think the PS3 will be the next Dreamcast. Even if there isn't enough demand at the current pricing levels, Sony will probably drop the price after doing some cost reductions. Still, I don't expect PS3 to reach the same marketshare as PS2. PS2's dominance of the market would be hard for any console to top.

Re:Here we go again

[grogdamighty]

And your post, if not ignorant, is at least as naive.

While shipped==sold in the longterm, this is not necessarily true in the short-term. What we have here is the rather unique situation of a console launch, where console makers produce as much as they can and retailers get as much as they can to sell. At this point, made==shipped. On the other hand, if shipped != sold (or close to it) in this time period, it becomes apparent that demand is not as high as it should be - which is what is happening right now. Considering their original estimates of shipping 6 million by March assumed (as Kutaragi said) that 5 million people would buy the PS3 even if they didn't make any games for the system, it is fairly clear that a low demand (as seen in low sales) now will equate to an eventual lower shipping rate (with a lag between the launch and when retailers realize they're not selling out their whole stock).

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the first person I've ever heard referring to Mario as "complicated". I will admit that it has gotten more involved and complex with the transition into 3D, but now the game itself tends to be broken up in such a way that you can accomplish small goals in ten minutes or less. That's why there are 120 stars in SM64, and 120 Shine Sprites and all those blue coins in Super Mario Sunshine. You get one, you save, you're done if you want. No level in that game takes more than ten minutes to play unless you get into the die-restart cycle.

And those die-restart levels and the more involved ones (Super Mario Sunshine's "Yoshi's Fruit Adventure", I'm looking at you...) don't have to be completed. You can finish the game without them. It's just more challenge levels for completionists.

Re:BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't something very similar true of the Dreamcast?

No, the Saturn. The Dreamcast was designed for ease of programming -- in fact Sega made a WinCE-based dev kit available for those who wanted it -- and had the traditional one-CPU/one-GPU architecture, as opposed two the Saturn's complicated dual-CPU setup.

Re:PS3 is an excellent console

[poot_rootbeer]

The Wiimote is interesting technology but I don't think they will have a monopoly on the design/usage of a pointing wand for very long.

Given the number of patents Nintendo holds on the technologies and design elements of the Wii Remote, it could very well be a while before any other console has a controller that can match it.

And even if there eventually is one, I don't know that the first-to-market phenomenon could be overcome. Today, if a publisher wants to build a game around touchscreen input, they're going to target it to the DS. If they want a game focused on spatial control, it's going to be a Wii title. I don't know what kinds of incentive the competition is going to be able to offer publishers to get them to switch away from Nintendo for those types of titles.

Re:BFD

[0kComputer]

Your post is utter bullshit. How the hell it got modded interesting is beyond me.
There are always a certain number of people that buy a new PS immediately, but they've never had a console that just flew off the shelves at launch. They're like the locomotive in the industry, take a long time to get moving, but once they are look out. Prices fall, footprint reduces, games come out in droves, sales grow and grow and grow.

Yet, the PS2 initially sold well partly on the basis of the strength of the PlayStation brand and its backward compatibility, selling over 900,000 units in the first weekend in Japan - this is not the same as whats going on now.

unless they screw up the games coming down the pipe in the future, it should be Nintendo's most successful console to date.
I highly doubt the wii, or any console is going to sell better than the first Nintendo system did back in the mid 80's.

Re:BFD

[DarkJC]

To be fair..

1. Very few failures in backwards compatibility (especially compared to the 360).
2. Lower resolution? What? All PS2 games play at their original resolution. There's some issue with certain games but it has nothing to do with resolution.
3. I've yet to hear reports of the PS3 overheating, except for the crappy demo kiosks, and I assume that's because they're starving for air in their closed space. No reports of PS3s overheating in peoples homes as far as I know.

Honestly, the PS3 is a great piece of launch hardware, especially compared to the 360 which was abysmal at launch (returned 360's galore) and still tends to have many problems (I still hear stories of people who are on their 3rd+ 360, nothing like that about PS3). I'm not saying that everything PS3 is perfect, there are issues, it's just that you didn't really mention any of them.