Sony has definitely been hit very hard by the recent economic crisis, but in terms of PS3 sales, the company is still set to meet its expected yearly forecast of 10 million units sold over the 2008 fiscal year, ending 31 March 2009.
“In terms of units, it is true that PS3, as compared to last year, is slightly worse, but on a full-year basis we believe we are on track to sell the 10 million units that I said at the beginning of the year,” said Sony’s executive vice-president and CFO, Nobuyuki Oneda, in a sales announcement late last week.
Sony announced that for the last quarter of 2008, PS3 sales were 4.46 million, which falls 440,000 short for the same period last year. But Sony remains confident that they will meet their expectations, despite still holding third place in the console war against Nintendo and Microsoft.
“Relatively speaking, (compared to) the growth of other platforms, we are behind, but it’s not the case that we are not meeting our targets,” said Oneda.
Sony is obviously placing high expectations on the February release of its blockbuster Killzone 2 title, which will undoubtedly increase revenue in software sales and console purchases, if the positive reviews of the game are anything to go by.
In terms of software Sony, has definitely excelled and has demonstrated excellent growth for the period over last year. PS3 software sales have increased around 57 per cent over last year and even the PS2 console has experienced a 51 per cent growth in game sales.
This news will undoubtedly be encouraging for Sony and even though it is are behind in console sales, evidently its existing users are strongly supporting the company with exceptional growth in software sales.