Sony originally forecasted that 400,000 PlayStation 3 consoles would be sold on launch day. Launch day came and went, and not even half of the projected amount were sold. It took two additional weeks after the launch for Sony to meet its original goal of 400,000. Between the launch, and the end of 2006, they were able to sell 1 million consoles, about half of their 2 million goal. So, what does this mean for Sony?
Dave Karraker, spokesman for Sony was asked whether they were worried about this, and his response? “Are we worried about strong sales of the Wii or Xbox 360? Not really,” he said. “It was a great year for the industry overall. With the tide all ships rise.” They led the previous generation of game consoles with their PlayStation 1 and 2 with 70% of the global market. Perhaps they think that there is plenty of time for them to catch up to the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii (which was projected to sell 4 million by the end of 2006).
Despite there being a limited supply of consoles, stores have them in-stock! Sony says the limited supply is due to manufacturing problems with the blue laser diodes, a vital part of the Blu-ray disk drive, one reason the price of the PS3 is a bit overwhelming. In fact, even with the limited supply, one GameStop store(pictured above) has placed a sign in the window saying “We have PS3 systems in stock… Plenty of them!” Whether that picture is legit or not is another question, but it does raise a good point. By no means are the PS3′s flying off the shelves like the Wii did.
Obviously comparing the Wii with the PlayStation 3 isn’t exactly comparing apples to apples. They’re very different with the PlayStation 3 loaded with next generation features, and a 20 or 60 GB hard drive. But, the point is that the Wii is clearly far more in demand than the PlayStation 3 is and it could be for a variety of reasons. I don’t know that I’d want to be Sony right now, but the tide can always turn. They plan to sell 6 million consoles by the end of March, a pretty hefty goal to fulfill with hundreds of PS3′s sitting on store shelves collecting dust at the moment.
In my hometown, we were buying any available PS3′s to sell them on eBay… We ended up returning most of them to the store [even the 60 GB's] because we couldn’t sell them for anything on eBay.
The Wii, however, is still in high demand all around, as far as I can tell.
Yeah, the eBay route to make profit didn’t last very long. I think you had to to be selling them in the first week or two if you really wanted to make a good profit. Now they’re simply not selling.
I couldn’t find a PS3 anywhere until a month after launch (except eBay because I wanted to pay $600 only for the system). Now they’re more available than they initially were, but I think that’s because the hype died down a bit and people are realizing that they won’t sell a system on eBay for $2000 anymore. Also, a lot of people who couldn’t get a PS3 bought the next best thing, an Xbox 360 and figured, there’s no point of getting both consoles, so they ended up getting a Wii to go along with it. Their Wii60 costs as much as a PS3 and parents are happier to buy their kids 2 cheaper systems instead of 1 expensive one.
[mak0db.awardspace.com]
enter your zip code and which hard drive you want and it will tell you what circuit city in your area as them available.
@Max: So how is your PS3 treating you? Do you think it was worth the $600?
@C: I never thought to check the retail stores online, especially Circuit City. We don’t have any near us in Iowa but it looks like almost all of the stores from where we used to live (North suburb of Chicago) have a bunch. I was pretty surprised to say the least.
@Ryan: I wrote up the review, almost, just waiting for a Blu-ray movie to watch and add to the review.
Can’t wait to read it. :D
you neglected to mention the very obvious factor of price in the demand equation. it’s worth noting that the good old PS2 is selling more than any one of the next-gen consoles.
I know a lot of people who are planning to buy a PS3, but are holding off because they are waiting until the price goes down, and they don’t need one right away because all of the “good games” (GTA4, MGS4, FF13, etcetera) are coming out in about a year. They figure the price will go down before then, so what’s the point? I see this as a sign that PS3 sales will pick up, but only after a price cut and a few blockbusters. Expect good sales in the 2007 holiday season.
Remember that it wasn’t until around February or March ’06 that 360 supplies finally got to the point where you could casually pick one up just about anywhere you wanted to. Likewise, until the PS3 supply stabilizes in the coming month, we won’t really know how good or bad the sales really are. But you have to admit that selling a million PS3 units in a month and a half is actually pretty good progress towards hitting that 2 million target (selling 1.8 Wiis in the similar period is even better).
I’m sure that Halo 3 will pause PS3 and Wii sales for at least a week.
I remember reading somewhere that PS2′s are expected to sell more than PS3′s this year as well. That’s pretty insane, but price is definitely a factor as you mentioned.
I think the price will drop as the Blu-Ray drive settles down a bit. The technology is still way too new, but I would say that a $100 to $200 price drop this year is reasonable in the system.
That’s a good point…I wonder how many Xbox 360′s Microsoft will sell the day Halo 3 launches. I’ve heard that Gears of War is pretty popular with the Halo fans so many of them might already own the system, needless to say that it would still affect PS3 and Wii sales because everyone will be focused on Xbox at that time.
Price, price, Price. Asking parent to fork over $600 bucks so their kids can play violent video games is a lot to ask. At $250 the Wii is affordable and Nintendo has a reputation for being more kid friendly.
I don’t have a Wii but out of all the systems I have seen people having the most fun on that one. I’m not really into the first person shooters or anything so the Wii would probably be my first choice. Not to mention how cool the controllers look!
It’s funny because Dave Karraker, spokesman for Sony, was asked about poor sales of the PS3 not about strong sales of other consoles. You can see the PR machine at work.
Frankly, I think they are worried.
They have to be worried because they have so much money invested in their systems. While it is a great deal for consumers (about $250 under what it costs Sony) it is still out of the price range that many families are willing to buy. Once Blu-Ray starts to become a little more prominent I think we might see some drastic price drops on the PS3 because that is what’s keeping the price above what people expect to pay. For the time being I’m satisfied with my original modded Xbox since it can do nearly everything a PC can.
Sony has no reason to be concerned about the PS3′s poor sales. I’m sure they want to sell at least a few million, but think about what it’s costing them! For every one million units sold they lose $250 million. If they sold four million units right now, they would lose one billion dollars. I’m sure they’ll be happy with only selling two or three million right now, and even keeping the price up until the price of production falls. While all of this is going on, the PS2 still sells more games than any other console, and they are reaping those rewards. I think that the PS3 is seen internally as the option for PlayStation owners who are no longer satisfied by the PS2.
A warning to Sony, though. If the price does not drop on the PS3 before GTA4 comes out, they may lose a lot of casual GTA fans. While GTA will probably be better on the PS3 (this is not the case for all games, but GTA is practically made for the PS3), many casual fans may not want to pay $100 more for a console just for slightly better gameplay. All must remember, GTA has always been more popular than Halo. GTA4 will be a defining point in the console race, with the tens of millions of GTA fans deciding what console to support this holiday season.
For the record, I try to be unbiased, and I think people posting here should try to [en.wikipedia.org] too. One of my favorite games is Halo, I prefer it slightly over GTA, and I would like to congratulate Microsoft on doing such a good job on the XBOX 360, both with the hardware and the content.
I never thought about them not trying to shoot for selling a huge number of units, but what you said makes a lot of sense. Nice way to think outside the box!
I always try to leave my opinions out and try to provide the facts where it is necessary. Sony’s PS3 undoubtedly has amazing graphical capabilities and the addition of the Blu-Ray makes it a steal for what it costs, but I think that is something many consumers (especially parents) won’t really care about.