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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."
I would still like to know how many they have sold! not shipped, a product can ship 7million units for all i care, but how many did they sell?
WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
They actually only have around 20 units that they shipped back and forth 50,000 times
The year is the *fiscal* year that, for Sony, ends in March
They have ohhh...
Until the end of March I'd say. All snark aside, there's some reality to that statement. The reason there is a "console wars", is because the console that makes the best business model for 3rd party developers gets the most exclusive games and the best ports. It's as simple as that.
The business model that Sony presented this generation, is one of the highest development costs, for a variety of reasons, but they hoped to balance that by selling 100 million systems again this generation. Which would work pretty well. Except for the selling lots of systems part it seems. So their whole business model they're presenting breaks down. For this reason, you'll see a sparse line-up this holiday season, which results in less sales. It's a negative feedback loop, and the stronger it is, the more they'll need to do to counter it. (An AAA+++ title or a huge price cut or both)
Just to go a bit further. The 360 has a more comfortable programming/design environment and better tools provided, lowering costs, and has a large and very active American and European fanbase, plus online handled through XBL, the possibility of demos and new content, and microtransactions (even though we all hate them). It's a good model.
Nintendo is offering a very low development cost system, that focuses more on controller interaction than pushing polygons. And it looks like Nintendo will be combining this with a very large world-wide installed base. (The Wii will probably be the #1 system worldwide by middle of the year) It's a very good model.
It all comes down to the games. Before the launch of the PS3, people were saying they wanted it because they wanted the same experience they got with the PS2 and the PS1, namely the huge library that had games in every genre and even created a few new ones. But it's looking more and more like that experience is going to be on a non-Sony system.
So if Sony can't start selling systems, it's not going to get the games. And if it can't get the games, it'll probably end up like the GameCube..making games for it's core audience, but little beyond that. And I liked..no loved the GameCube. But a lot of people didn't. (Mostly people who didn't have it..but anyway) Or they perceived it to be a failure.
It's a marathon, not a sprint. You might be surprised at how the market looks at the end of 2007. The 2 consoles haven't even been out for 2 months yet. There are no winners or losers yet, just leaders. It's a long race. Now return to your parents' basement where you belong.
To a certain extent this is correct but it is not (entirely) true.
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. The fact is that Publishers look at system sales to determine which system will get exclusive games, which system will get games ported to it, and which system to ignore; if the PS3 is selling poorly while the Wii/XBox 360 is selling well publishers will devote most of their resources towards development on the Wii/XBox 360 which will reduce the number of PS3 systems sold (because people buy systems to play particular games).
So it sounds like this only works on Sony units, and only certain specific Sony units at best -- yet another Sony proprietary product to waste their resources upon. Can't they see that a seperate unit which works with any HDTV would be better for both them and customers? But, this is Sony we're talking about.
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That's one million PS3s shipped TO THE US and only in 2006. One million does not include consoles shipped after the new year and consoles shipped to Japan at any date.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6163828.html
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.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
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.
/.'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 ;) )
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
When will companies start saying how many units were sold, instead of shipped?
You misunderstand how the whole manufacturing chain works. In auto sales it's easy to determine how many cars a company is selling because they control the important end of the chain to determine sales to consumers - car dealerships. Companies like Sony and Microsoft do have their own online stores but the majority of their sales are through retailers that are 3rd parties. Those 3rd parties aren't likely to report sales of a specific product, especially in the timely manner that manufacturers need. So as a result, they're forced to say how many units they've shipped in order to report how strong a product is. The theory is that it's hand in hand with sales since most big-box retailers use Just-In-Time inventory and other methods to keep consoles from piling up. Retailers aren't stupid - if the product isn't selling they won't order it. However, there may be contractural obligations built into sales contracts that says they have to stock so many units or buy in blocks.
This timely manner for sales reporting, by the way, can be blamed on everything from the console war to the fact that Wall Street demands quarterly reporting from public companies.
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?
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
If that article is correct in saying that supply has already met demand then it's also true that the console is selling like crap (aka being ignored). Think of it this way...
Most stores received 5-10 units at launch and the launch quantities were estimated to be between 150k and 200k... nearly double the launch quantities are sitting on shelves at any given store which means there might be anywhere between 300K to 400K units shipped but not sold... If Sony has only shipped 1 million units to the US it means it only took about 600K-700K units to saturate the market (at very least substantially less then 1 million)... that is also known as crappy holiday console sales, even worse when you consider the Xbox 360 saturated the market and sold nearly 2.4 million units in the same period of time, and the Wii is still currently sold out with over 2 million units shipped also. Using the same logic if Sony delivered the PS3 in the same launch day quantities that Nintendo delivered their Wii, then the PS3 would not have sold out at launch.
By admitting that they've met demand they're admitting that the demand isn't all that high. Because the quantities that they've reached are still very low when compared to the competition.
Collector's Edition
The fact is, a bunch of 2+ year old systems wasn't any "saturating the market" or providing any competition at all.
Oh, I know, I know, when you said competition, you meant "real", "serious" competition. Not, in other words, the Saturn or the Sega CD or the CDi or the 3DO or the Turbo Duo or the Neo Geo. You meant the real, SOLID systems. Just like when you were saying that no Scotsman eats porridge, you were only referring to the true Scotsmen, not like, Angus. Sure, Angus eats porridge, but think about it -- he can't even play the bagpipes!
It really wasn't that hard to see where the market was going a few months after launch, even 10 years ago.
I know. The past is rather predictable like that.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I don't doubt that 1 million unit have shipped to USA but, I'll be honest here I am a PS3 fan, a big one, but I don't see how they will ship or sell 6 million units by march. Its £549 in the UK (when released), thats double what Americans have to pay. I can justify £300, perhaps a little more, I still think the £200 cost of my PSP was worth it. Yet its the only console which will offer true versitility, I get my Gran Turismo,GTA, Tony Hawk, etc... fix and I can play Guitar Hero,Buzz and Singstar with friends. But is it worth £549?
The Xbox360 isn't in the same market, After a year there are almost enough games to make me interested in getting a Xbox360, but the limited hard drive lack of blu ray/HD DVD, crappy expansion slots and most importantly lack of any singstar,buzz,Guitar Hero type of games which puts me off the console.
The you have the Gimmick or Wii as it prefers to be known which has Wii sports, while I'm sure it will suck in many people with Wii Sports (heck we do have a 30 person strong waiting list for Wii's) I can't help but see it as anouther gamecube which will end up with two games I like and the rest of the game library sucking hugely. I'm not saying Wii Sports isn't fun, but it is the type of game which doesn't stay fun after the tenth time you've picked it up (kinda the same way a singstar/buzz game loses enjoyability over time.)
What does a gamer do? On one hand you have a console which sells based on a Gimmick (Wiimote) which looks set to sell hugely, one console which is limited in games for the non hard core gamer (which has sold well(Xbox360)) and the only console which looks like it could cover both is so incredibly expensive that I couldn't justify buying it (as well as the company showing increasing signs of evilness.)
They have a single unit that can be in all places and in all times at once. Sometimes it looks like a big scary black bird.
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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.
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Don't tell Microsoft that 1,000,000 consoles in a month and a half is a poor start. They took over three months to sell a million 360s. They launched earlier in the season, and they still didn't hit a million until February.
Only one console had a poor launch this generation, and it wasn't the PS3.