Sony President Ryoji Chubachi said on Thursday that the company still stands behind its goal to ship one million PlayStation 3 video game consoles by the end of the 2006 calendar year, countering consumer backlash and ill-will generated, in part, by shortages of the new, high-end video game system.
Speaking to reporters on Tokyo, Chubachi acknowledged bottlenecks in getting the systems to market, but re-iterated the company’s previous stated shipping goals were achievable and would not be changing.
Sony previously announced it planned to ship one million PS3 systems by the end of 2006, and ship 6 million PS3s by the end of its fiscal year, which ends in March 2007.
Sony launched the PS3 in Japan in November and week later in the United States; both launched were characterized by long lines and retailers selling out of the consoles long before most potential customers could set hands on one. Sony was able to ready only 100,000 consoles each for the Japan and U.S. debuts; as a result, Nintendo’s less-expensive Wii console—available in significantly larger quantities—has been able to outsell the PS3 by a factor of almost two to one, according to some market analysis figures. Sony put off launching the PS3 in Europe until March, 2007.
Currently, Sony is losing a significant amount of money on each PS3 console sold; Sony hopes to make up the deficit in the future on royalties of game sales, as well as by reducing production costs on the consoles themselves. Chubachi said Sony is working to reduce production costs for the PS3, and the first effects of those changes should manifest in 2007.
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