RSSPlayStation 3 Barely Eclipses Two-Thirds of Sales Goals
By Sharon Fisher | Published January 12, 2007, 10:40 AM
The December sales numbers from industry analyst firm NPD Group for game consoles have just come in, and they aren't pretty. Sony, beset by supply problems, reduced its initial August prediction of 2 million down to 750,000, and in the end didn't even make that - the company sold 490,700 units in the US in December, for a total of 687,300 since launch.
Of the season's new game consoles, Microsoft's Xbox 360 was the leader, with 1.1 million sold in December for a total of 4.5 million since launch, with Nintendo's Wii following with 604,200 in December and a total of 1.1 million since launch.
Microsoft's entertainment and devices division president Robbie Bach had claimed during Sunday's keynote address at CES that the company had sold 10.4 million consoles through December, but that number CORRECTION reflects a worldwide estimate of sales.
"I'm very excited about the progress we've made to become the leader in this next generation of gaming," stated Bach last Sunday. "We have sold through December 31 10.4 million consoles across 37...countries around the world. That's a half a million units ahead of our projections."
Even Sony's Playstation 2 sold more units than the beleaguered Playstation 3, with 1.4 million sold in December, NPD said.
Sony had said back in August it expected to sell a total of 6 million units by the end of this year, which even analysts back then thought was overly optimistic.
However in September 2005, analysts from Piper Jaffrey predicted that through 2008, Microsoft would sell 19.6 million Xbox 360 units - with 8.5 million sold in 2008 alone -- with the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Revolution (which became the Wii) trailing at 15.5 million and 5 million units, respectively. So in a sense all three consoles are doing less well than predicted.
There was some good news for Sony in December sales figures, however - they were the #1 manufacturer of televisions.
Humanatic, see the problem with your statment is those figures are WRONG. Nintendo Wii sold more then 600k units in December, I have been following reports of much higher numbers.
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|Well the problem is you see, sales figures for the PS3 also count people who desire to have the console. This is quite fair in that these potential owners (of the worlds most awesomely cool console) need to be counted because they will eventually own the console once production has ramped up. Now you may think that counting potential purchasers is unfair, you might be right but unfortunately this is the way it is and you should accept this. I'm sure you would like a PS3 too, I will add you, "Ramhound" if that is your real name....to the sales figures.
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|That is pure markting "talk" to change the numbers, i also wish to have a lamborghini, spaceship, a submarine and so on, can you put me on the list to!!!
You should be ashamed!!!
And of course me and the rest of the world!
Go on!
know it this kind of intel you can put the numbers of sale somewhere around the 6 billion...
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|SONY RULES:
Why -> There is one BIG thing being missed in this article!
Sony's LAST generation BEAT it's competitors NEXT generation!!! :P
Playstation 2 = 1.4 million sold in December
Xbox 360 = 1.1 million sold in December
Wii following with 604,200 in December
I mean seriously isn't it impressive that Sony's OLD videogame system still outsells ALL others!!!
And it's only a matter of time before the 105+ million owners of PS2's upgrade to the PS3.
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|Perhaps--but not likely.
Reason? PS2 ~= $100 USD, PS3 ~= $600 USD.
BIG DIFFERENCE. In fact, it is amazing that the 360 did so well even though it is more expensive than the PS2 and the Wii! Your logic is flawed because Sony is simply asking too much for the PS3--of course it is more expensive to make than anything else--therein lies a problem with Sony's selling strategy altogether. They should have either waited longer or simply made something a little less "next gen" where normal people could actually afford the dang thing!
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|Maybe you forgot that the PS2 was very expensive when it got released on the market and in the same $500-600 price range of the PS3 now.
The PS3 will fall in price soon and will keep falling in price as soon as new revisions for the Cell CPU, the GPU and the rest of the components will get available to Sony and they will start shrinking it like they did with the PS2 over the years.
Also, the PS2 is still a fully supported console while the Microsoft XBox is a dead duck with Microsoft supporting XBox360 only nowadays, simply because no one is buying the plain XBox anymore and previous customers that didn't buy the new XBox360 got fooled by Microsoft. The PS2 is still a success despite it's old and the games on it are more advanced and playable than those on XBox360.. so...
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|"Maybe you forgot that the PS2 was very expensive when it got released"
Maybe you forgot that PS2 had no competition when it was released.
"The PS3 will fall in price soon"
If the PS3 falls in price, then the 360 will also. Eitherway, blu-ray fanboys have been claiming a drop in price for the past 6 months, I have yet to see this.
The PS2 is still a success despite it's old and the games on it"
Isn't this refelcting on Sonys PS3 sales?
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|"The PS2 is still a success despite it's old and the games on it are more advanced and playable than those on XBox360.. so... "
You just lost all credibility with this statement.
PS3 is likely selling so well for 2 reasons. 1) Price. 2) PS2 owners need to replace failing systems.
I'm sure its a combination of both. At $100, its really affordable for anyone. Also - How many people may be buying their 2nd unit for another room?
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|"PS2 ~= $100 USD, PS3 ~= $600 USD."
For the idiots amonst us.
PS2 has not always been $100, that's it's CURRENT price. It used to be in the same price range as the PS3 is currently. Price will drop when each cost saving comes online and/or sales start slowing.
In 4 years, PS3 will be a similar price to the PS2 today. Thats how it works.
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|"Eitherway, blu-ray fanboys have been claiming a drop in price for the past 6 months"
more likely, you don't want to see it.
http://www.amazon.com/Sa...sc-Player/dp/B000F99FDE
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|YEY, I'm glad you guys are finally doing some research, LOL.
Thanks for the info buddy.
But like I've stated before, if the price of blu-ray drops, then so will the price for HD-DVD
http://www.amazon.com/To...=UTF8&s=electronics
Eitherway, reasoning that the price will drop is an irelevant point.
Heres a problem with the player you listed though
http://www.joystiq.com/2...-disc-plays-only-on-ps3
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|That's not the point though. The point is when you walk into the store 'Today' the PS2 is 6 times cheaper than the PS3. Hell, I'd rather buy a PS2 now instead of a PS3.
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|$600 for a gaming console is a lot of money, they will have to drop the price and take a bigger loss pretty soon. I heard of people getting second jobs to pay for their PS3's.
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|Couldn't agree with you more. As large as Sony is, I unfortunately remain doubtful that the losses will be severe enough to cause any long-term damage to the company. If I didn't have better things to do with that kind of cash for the time being, I'd probably have one by now, though.
Speaking of expensive consoles, the most I ever forked over for a system was over $700 for a Panasonic 3D0 when I was still in the Air Force almost 15 years ago. Looking back, that was incredibly stupid of me... but I could afford it, and I had a lot of fun with it (and still do occasionally).
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|This article should be marked, clearly the article is riddled with false hoods and mistakes, where exactly did this information come from because Betanews I have found is good about "valid" articles.
Any event, I would hope not even a Sony fan-boy/girl would claim this is even a valid argument against Sony's competion.
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|" NPD Group " ? They're the irresponsible ones, IF what you say is true. Betanews is reporting what they claim, so does that mean this article should be "marked" or the industry firm analyst NPD?
Still not sure how you gather that it is "clearly riddled with false hoods and mistakes". If you have some more reliable sources, show me the sources.
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|"We have sold through December 31 10.4 million consoles across 37 million countries around the world. That's a half a million units ahead of our projections."
Haha that's a lot of countries.
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|LOL, I agree.
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|Sony and Blu-Ray declare victory in format wars!
oh...wait a minute...
Where are all the Blu-Ray fan boys?
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|"Exactly as we had planned!", as (whomever is in charge at Sony today) was heard to comment.
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|Heres some light reading guys
http://www.sgknox.com/20...1/11/no-porn-on-blu-ray/
http://www.joystiq.com/2...y-leaning-toward-hd-dvd/
HUGE NAIL in blu-rays coffin
http://www.joystiq.com/2...-30fps-read-not-true-hd/
http://www.joystiq.com/2...is-emmy-emmys-say-uh-uh/
http://www.joystiq.com/2...tock-ps3s-are-troubling/
http://www.joystiq.com/2...-disc-plays-only-on-ps3/
If joystiq aint your thing, then do a quick online search, you'll find plenty more on the subjects included.
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|I just read all of the articles you posted links to. A few months back, someone said Blu-Ray was going to own the porn business.
These are all great links, I was laughing my a** off at the movie that only plays on the PS3.
Keep digging up the goods, I could care less if my Blu-Ray player goes obsolete, at least I can watch The Descent.
I think is was Gillespie or Dave that said porn would decide this format war when they thought Blu-Ray had the exclusive rights.
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|I have no doubt it was both of those tards. LOL
Where are they now? Guess they finally decided that logical reasoning finally makes sense.
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|LOL... too funny. Well, I can say this much... my local GameStop has about 25 PS3 60GB units in stock and they just can't sell them. On the other hand, when they get ANY shipment of the Wii in stock, they sell out within 2 hours of getting their shipment. Speaks volumes as to how badly Sony managed the PS3 production and launch, doesn't it?
~dnc
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|Didn't Sony just claim to have sold 1 million units since the launch?
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|No sold should be *shipped* 1 million units.
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|To be perfectly fair, Sony did claim they would produce 1 million PS3's and have them available by the end of the year from what I remember.
I don't think they said they would all be sold.
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|No, they just assumed they would be.
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|Piper Jaffrey is an idiot, considering the Nintendo Wii has close to 4 million units sold already ( infact I think they are past that number ) considering thats what they were saying was already manufactored and going to the stores.
His numbers for Decemeber are also wrong, since that number only includes what I believe to be North America, considering thats less then was sold in Australia and Europe during the month of December I am sure.
Unless he means that the Nintendo Wii will have sold an additional 5 million units in by 2008, then I might agree with his statement. Clearly with the fact he thinks Sony can actually build 14.1 million units within a year is sort of funny.
Needless to say his numbers are just plain wrong. There is no way Playstation 3 sold 1.4 million units in December, when they didn't even have that many made...
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|It's just to f*cking g** d*** expensive. :(
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|That isn't the problem as much as the fact that it's just to f*cking g** d*** hard to find. :(
I was looking for it all holiday break and could not find one store around that could get a hold of it. Sony is practically shooting themselves in the foot, as far as I'm concerned.
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|I was able to find 3 stores over Christmas that had many PS3 units in stock. Go figure...
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|Who won the Betamax VHS war ah VHS why, Same story porn was not allow license on Betamax. What happen to betamax. So who will win the HD_-DVD vs Blue ray war my money is on HD-DVD
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|OK, for the dumb amonst us, here is how it works...
There is alot of talk about systems on shelves, and how diffucult it is to get a WII, the bottom line, is Sony ae cranking out lots of PS3, there WILL be units on shelves..
If someone's twisted logic says that units on shelves = failure to sell, then Xbox360 must be the biggest flop going, as the shelves are full of them...
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|Same response in two forums, eh?
I'd copy and paste other's responses to this message in the other article, but--what am I wasting my time typing this for anyway? Goodbye.
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|Evidently you didnt read the article
"750,000, and in the end didn't even make that - the company sold 490,700 units in the US in December, for a total of 687,300 since launch."
So um, yeah... Not that many, yet no one wants them, except for the fanboys
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|Curious and as usual biased response, as the PS3 launch has gone smoother and has sold more than the botched Xbox360 launch a year ago.
So by that reasoning, the Xbox360 is an even bigger flop..
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|I need some sales numbers buddy, not assumptions. Eitherway, I couldnt get my 360 until March of 06, and I can walk into best buy right now and buy a PS3, how do you explain that? And dont say more supply because I know thats not the case.
http://www.joystiq.com/2...tock-ps3s-are-troubling
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|http://www.kotaku.com/ga...x-360-launch-226742.php
"Microsoft sold 600,000 of their Xbox 360s from their November launch to the second week in January."
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|Thanks for the info buddy
although 687,300 vs 600,000 is not much of a difference. But it still doesnt explain why PS3's are on shelfs while 360s were not until March.
In addition those sales numbers for the 360 were in FACT due to short supply, while the PS3 numbers are due to lack of demand.
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|plague,
You make this forum worth reading. After a month of having a BD and HD-DVD player, I can definitely see a difference in black levels, contrast, and overall sharpness.
BD still has the artifact issues I saw way back when, I still prefer HD-DVD over Blu-Ray. I've been getting movies from Netflix in both formats to check them out.
I think Sony's numbers are still way short of what the claimed to have shipped to stores.
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|"BD has artifact issues" ??
1) The media doesn't matter on artifact issues, the codec and its settings do instead.
2) A BD disc has 10GB on single layer and 20GB on dual layer more space than HD-DVD, so the same movie from the same studio at the same resolution and the same compression settings would look much better and with less possible artifacts simply by using an higher bitrate on BD, which couldn't be done on HD-DVD due to the lack of available space to store it.
3) Nowadays all titles being released are still only compressed with VC-1 (MS WMV9 HD) and MPEG-2 Codecs. Practically no H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) titles have been released and none at H.264 1080p with the highest possible bitrate to use the whole 50GB BD disc are on the market, yet.
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|Porn will not have the same effect. The internet is a huge resource for porn and was not around during the vhs/beta war.
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|Your absolutely right about the internet. But I'd still rather have the option to pop in whatever content I want into MY player. Why let Sony decide that for me?
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