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.

Comments

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.

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.

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.