How much PS3 sales Sony is going to forecast for the year ending Mar 2010?

[TheSource]

You guys shouldn't just focus on PS3...the PSP and PS2 expectations will determine whether or not they can cut price on PS3.

For the current year (ending March 2009) they expected 250m games to be sold to retailers on PS3, PS2, and PSP. The split is something like 105m PS3, 90m PS2, 55m PSP.

Worldwide, the PS3 software figure is up about 50m from last year, but essentially offset by flat PSP software shipments and a 65m shipment decline in PS2 software.

For Sony hardware the final projections for the March 2009 year were 8.0m PS2s worldwide, 10.0m PS3s worldwide, and 15.0m PSPs worldwide. Nintendo shipped 31.18m DS, and 25.39m Wii over the same period, while Microsoft shipped 11.3m Xbox 360s.

If Sony has a new PSP model which it believes will reinvigorate software shipments I think we'll see something like this:

PS3 - 12.5m / 140m ($50 price cut)

PSP - 14m / 70m

PS2 - 5.5m / 55m

That's 265m games, and 32m units of hardware, vs. 250m games, 33m units of hardware. Games are more profitable, so they could pitch it as growth. The 12.5m figure assumes PS3 has a price cut in early October which can be, at least to some degree offset by reinvigorating the PSP market.

 

If they don't have a new PSP, this probably the best they can do. You could just about justify a $100 PS3 price cut (2.5m * $100 less revenue, or $250m less revenue, on the 20m extra games sold at $60 ($1.2b) with Sony getting probably a quarter to a third of that as profit from either its own games or liscencing fees:

PS3 - 15m / 160m ($100 price cut)

PSP - 11.5m / 50m

PS2 - 5.5m / 55m

 

Absolute worst case scenario for the 3/2010 year is probably:

PS3 - 11m / 120m (no price cut)

PSP - 11.5m / 40m (new model exists, costs too much, digital distribution hurts retailers, liscencing fees)

PS2 - 4.0m / 35m (Sony, developers, and stores largely abandon PS2 as 360/DS/Wii/PS3 libraries grow)

 

I know this is a long way off, but the year ending March 2011 actually interests me for Sony. PS2 will be dead in terms of providing relevant revenue to Sony, PS3 will probably be up, but if there is a new PSP model, and not a new PSP Sony probably has to be re-allocating teams to PSP2/PS4 in this time frame and developing both so they'll be theoretically getting less revenue as R & D costs increase rapidly again.

FY 3/2011 could easily be:

PS3 - 11.5m (down slightly), 165m (up slightly)

PSP - 10m (down slightly), 40m (down slightly)

PS2 - 2.0m (down sharply), 15m (down sharply)

Shipping 250m+ games in a year each year seemed to be what Sony had to do in about ~1998-2005 to stay profitable in gaming. But with PS4 probably not launching by March 2011, I think there is a real chance Playstation system software shipments will dip below 200m in the year ending March 2012.