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PSP shipments down 75%; Sony refuses to give up
Momentum is clearly not on Sony's side. Newly released figures today revealed that the PSP shipped 1.76 million units the holiday period from October to December. While that's certainly not a small amount, it's dwarfed by the incredible performance of the PSP the year before, where the system shipped 6.22 million units.In spite of significantly weakening hardware performance, gamers are still buying games for the system, much to Sony's relief. Software sales were up 24% for this quarter compared to last year, reaching 21.2 million units.Sony CFO, Nobuyuki Oneda commented on the surprising plummet in PSP sales by stating that Sony will not give up on the platform. He noted that Sony is still implementing new ideas for the constantly evolving system. For the sake of PSP fans everywhere, let's hope that they can reinvigorate the public opinion of the system.[Via IGN]
PS3 may not make year-end 2 million production mark [update 2]
Bloomberg is reporting that the PS3 year-end shipment projection of 2 million units (with 1mil to 1.2mil tagged for North America) may not be possible. Sony says there is a parts shortage for the Blu-ray disc drive, so production is running behind previous forecasts.Our favorite Sony exec, Jack Tretton, chimes in saying, "Sony Playstation 3 is in full production and our target quantities for North America remain unchanged. Sony Playstation 3 will launch on November 17, 2006, in the U.S. with 400,000 units on store shelves. We plan to have more than one million systems in North America by December 31, 2006 and six million units shipped worldwide by March of 2007." "The honest answer is it's more of a target ... clearly we've had production issues."This news comes on the heels of Sony's statement of financial issues resulting from battery recalls and price cuts of the PS3 console in Japan. Those who made pre-orders shouldn't be impacted, but gamers trying to get the console for the holidays may have an even tougher time than anticipated.[Update: 1) Sony's Kaz Hirai told Gamespot yesterday, "All the [production] issues have been ironed out, now it's just a matter of being able to replicate the process to as many lines as possible -- which is going to help you, obviously, get as many units as possible [emphasis ours]." So what Jack meant was that earlier production issues, which have since been ironed out, may have impeded their abilities to make the initial launch "target." Thanks, Miniboss! 2) Looks like Bloomberg screwed up the "production issues" quote. According to Sony, "The reference to production issues is to the previously announced delay of shipments in Europe from November 2006 to March 2007."3) We will restate that this has no impact on the 400,000 launch day number.]
Playstation 3 launch misfire: Europe delayed to March '07, 500k total for Japan & US
If you were planning on buying the Playstation 3 for gaming or as a "cheap" Blu-ray player you may want to get in line now for the November 17th launch --- not so fast Europe. Due to the shortage of blue laser diodes, there are so few that the PS3 launch in Europe and other PAL territories has been scratched for 2006 and pushed back to March 2007. According to a report from the AP, there will only be 100,000 units available in Japan at launch, and 400,000 in the US. As a result, they only expect to ship 2 million total by the end of 2006, down from the 4 million expected previously. We all remember how hard it was to get the Xbox 360 last year, which launched worldwide and had approximately 400,000 available in the US. Sony still thinks they can hit their target of 6 million Playstation 3s available by March 2007 which should be approximately the same time they are available for less than double the MSRP on eBay.[Via Joystiq & thanks to all who sent this in]Read - Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Announces New March 2007 date for European Launch of PLAYSTATION 3Read - European sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 delayed until March
PSP shipments down, but software gaining momentum
While we were so hyped up about the new 2.80 firmware, some of the smaller news stories fell through the cracks. For example, Sony revealed their quarterly results, and revealed that yes, they finally made money. But, that money certainly didn't come from the games division. Rather, sales of digital cameras, cell phones, and the theatrical release of The DaVinci Code seemed to pour the cash into Sony's pockets. The games division has seen a 29.1 percent drop in sales and operating revenue for this quarter, and the operating losses have increased this quarter to $232.2 million.Sales for PlayStation 2's notably aged hardware and software predictably went down. Unfortunately, it appears that demand for PSP hardware has dropped worldwide, resulting in approximately 3% less shipments this quarter (note that shipments and sales are two different figures). However, shipments for software have nearly doubled, reaching 9.1 million (an increase of 4.2 million).While hardware may have seen a small dip, that software figure shows a still-impressive run for the PSP. It appears that the games division will be making most of its money from the PSP for now, as analysts predict that PS3 manufacturing costs will cost the company $2 billion within a year.[Via Gamasutra]
Treo 650 succumbs to RoHS, European shipments done
We're guessing Treo 650s aren't exactly a hot ticket item anywhere these days -- let alone in smartphone-heavy Europe -- but for what it's worth, Palm's old standby has been mercifully put down across the pond. It seems the 650 wasn't up to snuff on the EU's RoHS regulations, and rather than incrementally update the 650 to satisfy the requirements, Palm announced during their most recent quarterly earnings call that they're going to leave Europe out to dry until they're ready to ship their next model -- allegedly Europe-specific -- in Q4. With Lennon and Nitro in the pipeline, we think it's likely a variant of one of those devices will play the role of RoHS-compliant hero here, but in the meantime, snap up those Black Tie 650s while you still can.[Thanks, Rich]
