In a recent earnings call, Sony CFO Masaru Kato told investors that pre-orders for the PlayStation 4 are looking very good. He wasn’t willing to specify an exact number, but during the meeting (which was transcribed by Seeking Alpha and picked up on by GI.biz), Kato claimed that, compared to past platforms, “the pre-orders that we have received for this new platform [are] much, much, much higher.”
Kato also told investors that Sony is now expecting to not hit its initial sales estimates for the fiscal year that it announced in August, due primarily to lower than expected PC sales. However, he went on to reassure investors that the year-to-year results will be higher thanks to sales of the smartphones Xperia Z and Xperia Z1, as well as the upcoming PS4.
“We expect the PS4 to contribute to profitability at an early stage due to lower hardware costs and diversification of its revenue streams through network services,” Kato told investors.
Kato also reiterated that Sony is confident that it will sell around 5 million consoles by March 2014. The company’s confidence comes not just from the number of pre-orders, but the number of pre-orders where people have already put down money compared to those that have only put their name down. Kato further claimed that the support of third-party titles will help the PS4 launch with a stronger library than past platforms, helping to ensure a successful launch.
“[S]ometimes, when we launch a new platform, the software catalog is not sufficient, or after the launch, sometimes, you don’t have good titles following the launch,” Kato said. “But this year, on a comparative basis, I think we have a much … stronger lineup of software incoming.”
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