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.

BFD

[supabeast!]

Sony needs to worry less about shipping PS3s and worry more about selling the ones that are already out there. If some really cool games don't ship this year the PS3 could just end up as another expensive game system nobody could justify buying.

ATTN: Slashdot Editors

[skymt]

Please stop reporting on the numbers that analysts pull out of their hats. It's not news, it's a guess. /dev/random would be just as good as these clowns at predicting sales numbers.

Shipping more?

[dreemernj]

The mountain of 60 PS3's piled up inside the front doors of the local Best Buy for the past week tells me that shipping them should not be as high a priority as giving people a reason to buy them.

9 weeks

[thatguywhoiam]

We are 9 weeks from the launch. Some perspective is needed.

Re:So what?

[UbuntuDupe]

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

I care -- if the console you're talking about is the Wii, which has been selling out everywhere with no end in sight.

Luckily, I got one at launch, but what's keeping Nintendo from meeting the demand?

Re:BFD

[Branko]

SDK is hardly available

And if PS2 SDK is any indication, it will be of less then ideal quality.

This is exactly why MS has a chance at beating Sony in the next-gen console war. Multi-threaded programming is hard as it is, but Microsoft is at least providing developers with tools that do not make it even harder.

Re:So what?

[Thansal]

what's keeping Nintendo from meeting the demand?

same thing that happens at every launch. Being able to produce enough units to satisfy launch demands would require one of two things. Either create the required number of units before hand (and just store them), or make sure your production facility can keep up with the inital demand.

The First idea is silly, once you have units that are sale ready, you almost always want to start shipping (storing them takes money, and the only reason nto to ship is if you could drive up demand high enough to counter balance that cost, something that is unlikely, especialy if you are not going to jack the price artaficaly).

The Second is also silly, though slightly less obviously so. If you production system can actualy churn out the number of units required, then you will end up with a production system that will go to waste once the demand dies down, and thus your inital investment required to get it up and running is really a waste.

Re:Shipping more?

[YU Nicks NE Way]

Bingo! Give the man a carrot!

That's called an "in-store display".

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

[UbuntuDupe]

I have a better idea. How about someone post one of these:

-A picture of an unsold Wii in a store.
-A Wii ebay auction (not buy-it-now, an auction) ending at or below retail.
-A PS3 ebay auction WITH ACTUAL BIDS ending above retail.

Re:BFD

[AKAImBatman]

Sony's pockets aren't that deep at the moment.

They're still far deeper than Nintendos. Even if they don't have the cash reserves, they have sufficient credit to do nearly anything they need to do.

Personally, I hope the entire executive staff (also known as "pond scum") are evicted from their positions and replaced by a newer, more consumer-friendly bunch, but I don't think that's going to happen. At least not for a while. Which means that Sony will continue with their age old strategy of attempting to steamroll the competition.

Re:BFD

[twistedsymphony]

They will ship a few "cool" games this year. They mainly still only have their core franchizes however. Nothing much on the lines of new ones. My guess is that if they can get FFXIII (yes, we really are up to 13) out relatively soon they should see a nice boost in sales, combine that with other things like Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors, etc etc, and they might stil lhave a shot.

I agree that FFXIII would deliver the much needed boost however isn't that game more of a 2008 release? considering FFXII was just recently released XIII probably wont be out for at least another year, probably even longer considering it's a generation jump. And then comes the question if it would still be a PS3 exclusive if the sales haven't improved enough by that point. Devil May Cry would certainly help but that's another one rumored to be going cross platform, Capcom is making kissy faces with MS right now after the success of Dead Rising and the good response so far of Lost Planet (which is based on the same engine and DMC4 BTW). Dynasty Warriors is a full fledged cross platform title now, and has already enjoyed 2 released on the 360. Their best bets are MGS4 and Tekken6, but even those probably wont see light until about November and it's doubtful if even those titles could move a $600 console without a solid library to back them up.