Sony misses PS3 target as annual shipments hit 9.2M

Shipments of Sony's PlayStation 3 games console came in under target at 9.24 million units in the financial year to the end of March, and Sony's gaming business remained in the red, the company said Wednesday.

PSP is Sony's best-seller right now

PSP is Sony's best-seller right now

TOKYO -- Sony sold a total of 2.3 million of the consoles in the first three months of this year to take the full-year total to just shy of Sony's target of 9.5 million units. Sony had originally forecast sales in the year of 11 million units but three months ago revised to the more conservative target when it realized it wouldn't make its original estimate.

Some consolation for Sony will be that its PlayStation Portable business now appears to be on the right track following a lackluster debut. Shipments of the handheld gaming device came in ahead of target at 13.89 million units. Sony had been anticipating shipments of only 13 million consoles in the year.

PlayStation 2 shipments showed weakness, which had been expected as consumers focused on the higher profile and higher power PlayStation 3. A total of 13.73 million PlayStation 2 consoles were shipped in the year.

"The PlayStation 3 platform expanded worldwide with an enhanced software line-up and a new model," Sony's chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda said at a Tokyo news conference on Wednesday. "Due to a reduction in the manufacturing cost of the PlayStation 3 and reduction in software prices, operating losses shrunk significantly and the business was in the black in the second half of the year."

Overall Sony's games business saw sales jump 26.3 percent during the year to 1.3 trillion yen (US$12.3 billion) and losses retreated from 232.3 billion yen a year earlier to 124.5 billion yen.

For the current year Sony expects its games business to record a profit. Shipments of the PlayStation 3 are expected to be 10 million units, those of the PlayStation Portable 15 million units and those of the PlayStation 2 at 9 million units, Sony said.

THE VERDICT by Blake Snow Blake Snow's Avatar It's curious that both the DS and PSP are respectively Nintendo's and Sony's current best sellers, despite the high profile nature of the console war. Handhelds will dominate further still in five years -- believe it.

Comments [118]

post a comment

ceedubya9

Good job after a rocky start Sony. Now just continue to remain humble and put out good 1st party software and I'll be happy. I love my 60 gig PS3, and the ability it has to play all of those PS1/PS2 games. I'm glad I didn't wait to pick one up, because I would hate to have hook up a PS2 again when I can do it all in one console.[p] Good to see PSP business doing well. There needs to be more quality games though. Nothing has been interesting on this platform since Crisis Core IMO.

LIVINGLEGEND69

those are some good numbers. considering the price of the ps3 when it 1st came out.

salrang2002

HellStaR Posted at: 05/14/08 at 9:32 AM PST At least Sony doesnt deny their sales numbers unlike Microsoft
lol very true.

themave

salrang2002 Posted at: 05/14/08 at 9:27 AM PST Flame on
what should we flame on about, good overall results, projecting 10 million units for the coming year, overall will make the PS# a good seller, and stregthen the overall gaming market, It does the sonyfanboys who say the PS# will catch the 360 this year to be completely off the mark, as even sony's own projections, only have then equaling the 360 current installed base by the end of the year, so what ever microsoft sells will maintain there overall lead. this is what I have been arguing the both consoles are going to sell well, neither is going to run away with anything, (or catch the wii) and that is good for the hardcore gamer, as we will both get a lot of multiplatform games to play because the publishers won't be able to make enough money just publishing for one platform, since one platform will not be dominate.

Post a Comment