Sony Sees PlayStation 3 Sales Boost

Sony says price cuts and a new 40 GB model have more than doubled sales of the Sony PlayStation 3 game console in the United States.

Cutting the price of its PlayStation 3 console by $100 and introducing a new 40 GB model last month seems to be paying off for Sony According to the company, it had been selling between thirty and forty thousand video game consoles of all types (PS2 and PS3) before the October 18 price cut and new model announcement. In the week ending November 4, the company says it sold more than 75,000 consoles, and the week ending November 11, that number topped 100,000 consoles.

“It’s the breakthrough we’ve been anticipating,” Sony CEO Howard Stringer told the Associated Press. “We’ve been holding our breath.”

Sales of Sony’s Blu ray-equipped PlayStation 3 console have failed to keep up with less-expensive competition from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and (especially) the much cheaper Nintendo Wii, which has been the runaway success in the video game console market during the last year. However, Nintendo is still having trouble keeping up with demand for the Wii—hinting that supplies will be short throughout the upcoming holiday season—and Sony is hoping the PS3’s new pricing will be able to take advantage of Wii supply shortfalls. “It’s a little fortuitous that the Wii is running out of hardware,” said Stringer.

Nintendo is expected to sell more than 22 million Wii consoles by March 2008; in contrast, Sony hopes to sell 11 million PS2 consoles by the same date, but had moved only 5 million by this October.

Sony’s new 40 GB model ignited some controversy in the gaming community by dropping all compatibility with PS2 and PSOne games; however, Sony is pushing ahead with its previous console, the PS2, continuing to offer the console for sale and recently introducing a new white version for the console’s seventh anniversary, and rolling out a new slimmed-down version for the Japanese market.