70 million PS3 units shipped worldwide

Andrew, there's no way Sony will ship 15 million more PS3's in the coming 12 months. Shipments are declining and that will only intensify over the next couple of years. It's not unfeasible though, and in fact it could be quite likely given Sony's superior distribution channels in developing markets, to see PS3 overhaul 360 in the long-run.

Posted:6 months ago

Sure, they could SHIP 15 million more units, but would those units sell? Probably not.

Why are we comparing PS3's units SHIPPED to the XBOX's units SOLD? These are two very different numbers.

Posted:6 months ago

Josh, they can only ship what retailers and distributors will order. So they can't even ship that many just because they want to.

Using current quarterly totals and the differences between the sales in the same quarters in the previous fiscal year, they are actually going to be about a million units short of their fiscal year projection anyway.

And I agree the shipped vs sold to consumer numbers shouldn't be compared but those are the current numbers each company has given us to work with.

Posted:6 months ago

What about the, surely not insignificant, number of sold 360 units that were bought as replacement to red ringed consoles? Loads of people tell me that they simply buy a new machine whenever the console buys the farm rather than wait for Microsoft to sort it out before they can get back to playing.

Posted:6 months ago

It has been a decent year for PS3 this year everywhere. If the console market was just made up of Xbox 360 and PS3 (and they have offered the only resistance to decline in recent years) the PS3 has taken market share from Xbox 360 in all markets despite the 360 still outselling the PS3 in USA; it is outselling but by a smaller factor this year. So from a consumer perspective the PlayStation brand is not as weak as some observers have made out as there seems to be a PS fight back which could bode well for Sony in the future and, if hardware prices are equitable, could ignite a real battle which will be decided by service offering (as it used to be).

Posted:6 months ago

@Nicholas--The PS3 may be taking a small amount of market share from the 360, but the fact remains that in the US the PS3 sits in a distant third place for total consoles sold. Yes the 360 is also a distant third in Japan but the difference is that Microsoft was not the console leader in Japan during the last two generations while Sony was the console leader in the US the last two generations. So while all three console makers could consider this gen a "win" based on total units sold, Sony would be the one who lost the most in my opinion based on how much market share they lost this gen, especially in the US.

What most interest me in this story is the mention of 15 million Move's shipped. I'm having a hard time imagining even half of those have been sold although that could very well be the case. This is why I wish Sony would report on sold items like Microsoft and Nintendo do, as opposed to shipped items.

Edited 2 times. Last edit by Paul Jace on 16th November 2012 7:22pm

Posted:6 months ago

Paul, my understanding is that Sony combines the Move and Sub-Nav together when they report total Move units shipped. So that 15 million is more likely to be 9-10 million actual Move controllers. And when you consider that many gamers bought multiple units on the hype of Wii party game style gameplay, that could be closer to 5-7 million units owned by actual different users. I'm basing my breakdowns on rough calculations but the concept is there. The 15 million figure doesn't mean 15 million different PS3 owners own a PS Move controller.

Posted:6 months ago

Day's before we start the Gen-8 assault, and what we have here is commentary that the winning Gen-7 machine was Nintendo, with a joint second place (though Japan and US saw mixed results - fundamentally handing it to XB360 over the PS3).

That is very pitiful for SONY to have to admit (the once dominant force), especially with other major corporate losses and miss-management - so the media is encouraged to hide the figures in shipped rather than sold calculations - where any honest writer would just clearly place the facts at the readers feet and have them draw the distinctions.

For me a cadre of the management (JP and Western) that led the PS3 from creation were arrogant, self-centered and blinkered towards the reality of the business they professed to be expert in - from openly rubbishing Wii only to scramble to create their own inferior MOVE - to dismissing online requirements only to again scramble to catch-up and create a system so flawed that they have had numerous major security breaches.

Now with PS4 only 14-months away and again playing last place to XB740 and Wii-U launches, the ability to live off of the Blu-Ray to help baluster sales of the next console will not help SONY this time. As we see some developers shying away from committing to PS4-SDK units, could we see the corporation falter in 2013?

Edited 1 times. Last edit by kevin williams on 17th November 2012 9:24pm

Posted:6 months ago

I wish Sony would just not do this. Shipped and sold are never the same thing.

Microsoft = 70 million sold while Sony is 70 million shipped.

I'm sure Sony's actual numbers of sold would have stacked up just fine, all be it a few million less than Microsoft and both being about 20 million less than Nintendo's dust bunny (that annoying bloody Wii that keeps mocking me in the corner of my TV stand). Well frak you Nintendo! I'm not touching the Wii U......yet.... >_<

Edit:

Hey why is this thing culling my text!

Edited 2 times. Last edit by Peter Dwyer on 19th November 2012 8:30am

Posted:6 months ago