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Sony on Track to Ship 11 Million PlayStation 3 Game Consoles by Late March.

Sony to Double PlayStation 3 Shipments This Fiscal Year, Says Game Unit Chief

Category: Multimedia

by Anton Shilov

[ 09/20/2007 | 11:28 PM ]

Despite of fairly slow start and relatively low demand in the U.S. and

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Europe, Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console is on track to double its shipments this fiscal year, which ends in March ’08 for Sony Corp., the head of the company’s game unit said in an interview, meaning that the firm will ship 11 million in its fiscal 2007.

“We are planning various steps to support our software and hardware businesses… I think we can do pretty good in terms of the target,” said Kazuo Hirai, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., in an interview with Reuters news-agency when asked about an aim to double the 5.5 million PlayStation 3 game consoles shipped the previous year.

Sony shipped 5.5 million units of its latest game machine between November 2006 and late March 2007, however, according to some estimates, only 4.32 million Sony PlayStation 3 consoles were acquired by end-users, meaning that the vast majority of the PS3s are still sitting in stock. The main factor that keeps gamers away from the PlayStation 3 now is its price, which is about than twice higher compared to Nintendo Wii or the entry-level Microsoft Xbox 360. But while it is crucial for Sony to slash the PS3 retail price, the company does not want to take any actions just now.

“I think about PS3 pricing every single day. It is that important a factor… But I am not planning any immediate pricing action now,” Mr. Hirai said.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.’s pricing policy had been watched by the industry experts in the last few weeks as the company had been widely expected to announce PS3 price cuts at the Tokyo Game Show 2007, which started on Thursday. It is unclear whether sell-through figures will be anywhere close to sell-in figures if Sony succeeds in shipping 11 million of its PlayStation 3 game consoles this fiscal year, but the price remain on the same levels.

Instead of making price cut announcements, Sony indicated that it is very important for its game console to have exclusive high-quality game titles and to achieve this SCEI may even acquire certain software makers. Nevertheless, the firm has no plans to take over game developers just in order to get them.

“We wouldn’t buy a company just because we can. Talks of an acquisition would emerge only when a company already has tight relations with us, its corporate culture is compatible with ours, its employees are working closely with us, and it can churn out strong software titles,” said Mr. Hirai.