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PlayStation (Games) Businesses The Almighty Buck

Sony Claims One Million PS3s Sold in EU / AU 67

GamesIndustry.biz reports that one million PlayStation 3s have been sold in the European and Australian markets. This breaks the record for Sony console sales in those sectors, as they've reached that number in only nine and half weeks. "Although released in Japan in November last year, the console has so far sold just under a million in the region, with 910,737 units sold, according to data from Media Create. The last hardware sales figures released by NPD in April showed that PS3 sales had reached over 1.3 million units in North America. According to Sony, Resistance: Fall of Man has sold 600,000 units in Europe, with MotorStorm reaching just over 500,000 sales."
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Sony Claims One Million PS3s Sold in EU / AU

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  • wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:31AM (#19438081) Homepage
    No snide comments thrown in the slashdot story denigrating Sony? What is this, a neutral, legitimate news site now or something??
    • Re:wow (Score:4, Informative)

      by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:40AM (#19438267)
      Well, i feel almost obliged now (source) [kotaku.com]...

      Nintendo DS:

      Global: 40 million
      Europe: 11 million
      Britain: 3.1 million

      Nintendo Wii:

      Global: 5.84 million
      Europe: 1.3 million
      Britain: 438,000
      • Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rherbert ( 565206 ) <slashdot,org&ryan,xar,us> on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:54AM (#19438545) Homepage
        This is actually pretty surprising... 1.3 million Wiis have been sold in Europe, while 1 million PS3s have been sold in the EU/AU? That seems pretty impressive for a machine that costs more than twice as much.
        • I'm almost definite that the European numbers there are reflecting Europe. While as the PS3 numbers are reflecting Europe and Australia. Apparently there's a large amount of Australian gamers, I know IGN just recently opened a AU branch.

          I could be wrong, but that's probably a little more likely considering the other numbers from the Wii.
        • Assuming Europe is the same as here for availability, the number of Wii's sold is roughly equal to the number produced (since they get bought within hours of being put on the shelf). Is this true for Europe and can the same be said for the PS3?
          • by antek9 ( 305362 )
            No, as far as I can see (anecdotal only, mind you), the Wii is available here at European retail stores. Maybe the market is saturated already, maybe there's not enough games impressive enough. Who knows? The PS3 isn't exactly sold out, either, but people seem to be more excited about that one, even if they haven't got the cash lying around to purchase it. The only thing that's sitting on the shelves like rusting metal is the 360.

            People that are in the market for a system at that price point (360 or PS3,
            • by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
              I doubt the part about buying the more expensive one since those 200€ don't come out of thin air and these days you get the 360 with all kinds of extra stuff thrown in (bundles I've seen were Kameo, PGR3 and a racing wheel or Guitar Hero 2 and guitar controller, both packs for 400€ each). I'd expect the PS3 to sell better right now because it's new and there's still more demand, not because it looks like the better option.

              Either way, the sales of both the PS3 and 360 have been described as insuffi [spiegel.de]
        • I'd rather attribute it to the extreme shortage of Nintendo Wii. Some local EBGames stores around here only get a couple now and then, while they're fully stocked with PS3.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          This is actually pretty surprising... 1.3 million Wiis have been sold in Europe, while 1 million PS3s have been sold in the EU/AU? That seems pretty impressive for a machine that costs more than twice as much

          It's not impressive at all when you consider that the PS3 is widely available...so widely available that stores are cutting prices to make it move. The Wii, on the other hand, generally still requires giving up your firstborn and your soul to find.

          • by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
            Stores aren't really cutting prices from what I can see, they bundle some crap with it and raise the price (though I think the bundles are cheaper than the parts individually), I'd assume the margins are too small to do any pricedrops.
          • It's not impressive at all when you consider that the PS3 is widely available...so widely available that stores are cutting prices to make it move. The Wii, on the other hand, generally still requires giving up your firstborn and your soul to find.

            Things are improving though. Now getting a Wii only requires giving up your firstborn or your soul.

          • I have a Wii with several downloaded virtual games and retail titles included and 4 Wiimotes with nunchucks. I'm thinking poopsicle for a first name. when can we make the trade?

            I'll come back for the soul.
            • No thanks. I got mine on launch day, after a grueling 40-minute wait in line. :-)

              I got up early launch morning, just to drive around to the major stores (Best Buy, Target, Circuit City) to see how big the lines were. I didn't expect to get one. I was just curious.

              After that, it occurred to me that I had not checked K-Mart. I had driven by K-Mart the night before, and no lines were forming, and I wasn't even sure K-Mart was participating in the launch. I was curious to see if there was a line there, bu

              • Nice,

                It took us a few tries to get one, about a month after the intial launch we picked up 2, one for us and one to sell on Ebay, hehe just kidding (I hate those jerks) the second one was for my brother who lives in southern cal. towards the end of our search stores wouldn't even tell us if they had any, i guess the number of people calling was crazy by then.
          • by kyrre ( 197103 )
            I was in Madrid early may and noticed that every game store I went to had lots of Wiis available. I was quite surprised by this as in my native norway they are quite rare. Though I have seen some in stores. Equally weird is that there where no Wii demo machines. Every one had XBox 360 and Playstation 3.
        • Re:wow (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Deag ( 250823 ) on Friday June 08, 2007 @12:00PM (#19439813)
          The hype about the Wii that has been in the States is not the same as in Europe. There has been a certain extent of hype but none of the old ladies and dead people buying them rush that has been in North America (well that is the impression I get on slashdot.)
      • Just thought you may like to know, Britain is actually part of europe.
        • In this case (FTFA), Britain's figures are separated from continental Europe. To save space, it's shortened to just "Europe" in the table of numbers. Thus the total European sales are actually 1.78 million units. Australia probably has another 100-200K to add to that, as the AU division of Nintendo has been seeing record sales. Which is pretty impressive considering that Nintendo hasn't shipped them any games. :-/

          (Australia has something like 7 games for the Wii. Even worse, they didn't get Turbografx-16 ga
          • by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
            Usually businesses mean Europe, Africa, Australia and pretty much everything else that isn't Canada, the US or Japan when they say Europe.
          • by miro f ( 944325 )
            well I know vgcharts is a taboo word here, but they have Europe at 2.10 million Wiis currently with Australia making up a lousy 90k of those (we were never a Nintendo nation).

            They appear to be the best (freely availably) tracking source for Europe, they had PS3 at .95 million when this announcement went out, and considering Sony is likely to overestimate, I think it's pretty decent.
  • and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu...

    Or something.
  • its about Final Fantasy
  • by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:37AM (#19438177)
    It's great when the summary is about EU sales figures for the PS3, but the story link goes to a discussion of the next Final Fantasy game.

    WTF?!
    • by eln ( 21727 ) on Friday June 08, 2007 @10:48AM (#19438441)
      You've stumbled upon the fabled Secret of Slashdot: The editors know no one actually clicks the links, so they have an automated script that just make stories up in the summary, and links to random pages on the Internet for the "articles".

      They came up with this idea when, back in early 1999, CmdrTaco posted a story about a new company offering to sell gravel over the Internet with free shipping. However, instead of posting to the Wired article about the new company, he accidentally posted a link to goatse. Strangely, the only emails he got about the story were people raving about how cool it would be to finally be able to buy gravel over the Internet. NOT A SINGLE PERSON commented on the goatse link! No one was reading the articles!

      Ever since then, the editors have been spending most of their time blitzed on rum on a Caribbean beach while the script runs Slashdot.

      For years, trolls have been commemorating this event by posting goatse links in the comments. However, most people don't realize the significance of these tributes, and quickly mod them down.
      • He owes me a new keyboard!
      • by Elsan ( 914644 )
        I can buy gravel over the net!? ZOMG!
      • I remember this fabled article. I was new to the net at the time, so young, so naive. I just wanted some gravel. Heard I might get a good deal over the internet. I clicked the link to see what types of gravel were available. Little did I know what horrors I would witness. I vowed to never order gravel after I saw the method for delivery. Though high capacity, I didn't want ass gravel under my new patio.
  • http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 25649 [gamesindustry.biz]

    ^^ In case you're more interested in TFA rather than Square Enix "clarifying" their position on Final Fantasy.
  • Any idea how many PS2 consoles were available in stores in Europe in the first 10 weeks of distribution? I'm too lazy to check, but I bet it's less than the million they have available now.
  • 2007 estimates:

    Austria 20,982,000
    Europe 710,000,000
    Japan 127,433,494

    European PS3 sales don't seem all that impressive to me for 2.5 months.
    • The size of the European console games market isn't proportional to Europe's population.

      The size of Japan's console games market is roughly the same size as the console games market in North America. Europe and Australia together have a console games market a little smaller than North America or Japan. So considering the late launch, 1 million is actually better than they're doing in Japan and North America. PS3 is still a bit short of 1 million in Japan and their sales have fallen to about 10,000 per week.
      • So Sony may be slightly less weak in Europe and Australia, but even there I don't think they're still WAY behind the 360 and Wii.


        That should be:

        So Sony may be slightly less weak in Europe and Australia, but even there they're still WAY behind the 360 and Wii.
      • The North American market has been bigger than the Japanese market for years. Just look at the figures: XBOX360: 0.39m Japan 6.34m America Wii: 2.64m Japan 3.21m America PS3: 0.94m Japan 1.47m America Even if we remove the 360s numbers, since the Japanese don't really seem to want the console, the Wii and the PS3 are selling better in America by a similar ratio. Japan has more DSs, but that's as much of a cultural issue as the low 360 sales. Without the DS fever, the market's size difference would b
    • s/Austria/Australia/

      That was extremely confusing for a moment...
  • Well... looks like Sony's definitely got a Blu-ray stronghold around there. I wouldn't mind seeing what HD-DVD to Blu-ray sales have been doing for the past few months in that area.

    And as an added note, I don't know whether to see it as funny or not... but directly under TFA, under "related information", was a link on Wii sales, putting it at 1.6 million :P
    • by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      Let's not forget that HDTV penetration is much lower in Europe than the US (mainly because it arrived here later) so HD media may not be such a big seller.
  • Who read TFA? Read it three times says nothing about selling 1 million units. Talks about Square Enix clarifies position on Final Fantasy for 360.
  • ... PS3's getting creamed elsewhere. In Japan alone, as of last week, Wii is outselling PS3 8:1. http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=5913&Itemid=2 [next-gen.biz] That might say more about the Japanese buying tastes than those of the Euro crowd, but it's still highly indicative of Sony's "hard sell", uphill battle with the PS3. 1mil units in the EU/AU market might sound nice, but we have to really look at the bigger picture. Since the article link is wrong, is this actually 1m
    • http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 25649 [gamesindustry.biz] Hmmm.... Says nothing about selling through to actual customers. Then again, it says "sold" instead of "shipped". Could be actual sell through.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      The bigger picture is nice. But as long as Europeans, don't know about Australia, is treated like a different species, the bigger picture doesn't say much.
      Europeans are not treated like North Americans and not as Asians... resulting is retarded late releases of games, gaming hardware, movies, etc. Or resulting in fucked up releases because "we don't understand it" (-- reference to the Grindhouse bullshit).

      So for all it's worth, the PS3 might be successful in the EU and not in the rest of the world. (but pro
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Doctor_Jest ( 688315 ) *
      "creamed" isn't likely a word I would use (unless I relished the insinuation that Sony wasn't doing so "hot")... It's a $600 (or so) console v. a $250 console. Apples to Oranges (no pun intended)... and I for one am happy it's selling faster than previous generations, in spite of the price. That alone is impressive to me, a platform agnostic... This sort of news (8:1 ratio) isn't going to make my toast suddenly not come out right, or my milk to spoil... so in reality, if someone needs this information t
      • by LKM ( 227954 )
        There's no reason anyone would need external justifications for liking Excite Truck. It was an awesome game, and I kept coming back to it for about three times as long as I played Motorstorm.
        • I love Motorstorm much more... It's not as expansive in unlockables as say, Burnout, but it's fun and when I play it... it feels next-gen, looks next-gen, and is damn fun to play with the sixaxis motion sensing on......

          I used excite truck as an example because it was for a while the only racer for the Wii proper.... (at least as I remembered it)... and even then, it seemed like Madden O6 on the 360... rushed to market and missing some features. I thought that was a travesty for the football franchises (and
          • I think the issue is that Motorstorm and Excite Truck can't really be compared. While they are both Arcade Offroaders, that's where the similarities end. Excite Truck is a lot faster, with huge jumps and boosts. You just try to go through the course as quickly as possible, barely touching the ground at times. There's no simulation or reality involved. It's a kind of Offroad Mario Kart.

            Motorstorm, on the other hand, requires you to read the ground. It moves much slower and, despite of clearly being an Arcade
            • I think most launch titles have a little bit of "greenness" on them. I am surprised there's no local MP splitscreen for Motorstorm as well... That being said, I don't mind that a little, but MAdden 06 was unacceptably shortchanged. (and 07 for the PS3)

              You know the mindless adrenaline rush I get is from Burnout Revenge. It is one of the few racing games that gives me a sense of speed... (and it's fabulously hilarious!)

              Wow.. I didn't realize that Resistance devs apologized.. :) I think it's a gorgeous ga
              • by LKM ( 227954 )

                Agree about Burnout. While - in my opinion - it had some duds (Revenge), it's generaly an awesome franchise, and I can't wait for a real next-gen entry. Burnout Racing + Motorstorm Car Destruction == Pure Awesome.

                I probably won't use it for the VC, but who knows? :)

                I bought some multiplayer games. Love how you can play 5-player games with four Remotes and a Gamecube pad. 5-Player Bomberman and Battle Lode Runner rule.

                Also, Zelda and ActRaiser :-)

  • since no one reads TFA, and TFA has nothing to do with T actual FA, is this like the "1 million zunes sold" article where there were 1,000,000 units sold to vendors, or are there actually 1,000,000 units in homes?
  • I'm sure that Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke are pleased...

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