Kazuo Hirai Sony President Claims: We’ll Reach 11 Million PS3 Target In Time For March 2008 Deadline
Filed under: Gaming, News | By: JP
Posted on: September 24, 2007 | 4 Comments
Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment is adament that the company will achieve its predicted sales target of selling 11 million units of the PlayStation 3 in the fiscal year which ends next march.
However, it seems that VG Chartz has other ideas. VG Chartz claims to be ‘the most comprehensive videogames chart in the world’. It’s figures show that the PS3 has only managed to shift 4.64 million units to date, that’s according to data from their charts covering Japan, America and other territories around the world.
Taking these figures into account it seems highly unbelievable that the performance the PS3 is currently putting in will ensure the 11 million target is reached - especially without that much-rumoured price cut.
Earlier this week it was reported that Sony is prepping a 40GB entry-level PS3 that would retail for around $400 and in the UK for around £300.
Hirai seemed to rule out the chance of a price cut in his speech at the Tokyo Games Show, but he did acknowledge that a future reduction in price was ‘possible’
A cheaper unit would bring Sony back into the next-gen console race and Hirai’s confidence in light of the recent poor sales figures shows that he knows it.
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I don’t think I’d buy a 40GB PS3. On the other hand, even Sony do this, I don’t think they’ll be able to meet the target of selling 11 million PS3.
Why not wait to see how Sony’s sales pan out? Sony is not leading the pack in North America by a long shot but it is still in the game and is showing lethargic but respectable worldwide sales. Sony has to clean up its act but it will get there. Even though vgchartz.com claims to track retail sales, it does not literally track retailer point of sales information. It does rely on sales information from various site visitors who work at retail but it does not get comprehensive sales information from any corporate retail entity, making vgchartz.com an estimation site and nothing more. You should not take it as gospel.
According to Sony themselves last week it has sold ‘between 5 & 6 million worldwide’. Sony never lie about sales figures. Ever. The official sales figures released in June put it at 4.3m (not including Junes sales). For VG Chartz to be correct it would have had to have only sold 340,000 since then. It actually sold over 388,000 just in the US in that period so its safe to say that VG Chartz don’t have a clue what they are talking about.
Even if monthly worldwide sales stay as they are right now it will hit around 8m in March. Of course they won’t stay as they are because Haze, Metal Gear Solid, LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet & Clank and loads of other games are coming between now and then.
VG charts, Next gen wars, etc all use estimate data based on this and this. They are not accurate predictions