Sony Looks Ahead to PS3 Success

And the non-game bits could be the ticket.

By many people's estimation, the PlayStation 3 endured most of 2007 surrounded by a distinctly negative aura, as complaints about the high price of the system and the lack of software came together in the worst way. But the console has done better than the haranguing might lead you to believe.

Kaz Hirai, the head of PlayStation, said in an interview over the weekend that worldwide PS3 sales are on track to hit 11 million by the end of Sony's financial year in March, according to an AFP report.

That's a big number, but it's short of the Xbox 360 and well off the watermark set during 2007 by the Wii.

A big reason why the PS3 is being outsold is the system's price, which has recently been brought closer to that of the Xbox 360. Speaking with the New York Post, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter said that "it is pretty clear that price makes a difference. As PS3 prices have gone down, sales have gone up."

Pachter was commenting on the uptick in PS3 sales since the system's price was trimmed. Since then sales have more than doubled.

Hirai acknowledged the attention given to the system's price, but added that "now we would like to put our strength in the number of software games".

He'll be hoping for more luck than Sony's in-house games have had this year though.

Among some of the biggest games on the PlayStation 3 this year were the Sony-developed games Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

The three, all exclusive to the PS3, have been well received by critics, but for the most part they have failed to excite PS3 owners, who opted instead of third party games such as Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Games, though important, are not the whole story for either Sony or Microsoft.

According to Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst with Screen Digest, it's all the other things PS3 and Xbox 360 can do that will push them in 2008.

Harding-Rolls says in a new report, via Next Generation, that "now that these multi-media services - online video, IPTV, digital terrestrial TV and PVR functionality - are now available or poised to come on line in different markets, this 'hub' strategy is emerging as a key console battleground for Microsoft and Sony."

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo