The software figures for FY March 2010 seem a bit high to me, but its certaintly possible.
Of the 240m predicted it looks like over half will have to be on PS3 though. PSP software rates are likely to drop to ~0.67 from ~1.0 this year on a games purchased per the 65m user basis...which is like 43m games, down from 50m this year. Without strong hardware sales the PSP software market would be irrelevant already. These rates assume the new PSP Go is introduced successfully as well.
PS2 sw dipped by over 70m this fiscal year. With hardware at 5m for the year its hard to imagine software totals over 55m for PS2.
They forecast 240m games shipped though, so I get about 140m PS3 games shipped in the fiscal year, which would dip the games per user rate from 4.5 this fiscal year to 4 in the next fiscal year. Seems a little optimistic to me on 13m PS3s even with a price cut likely justifying an extra game purchase for most new users.
As I said in my opening tirade, the real problem for Sony is that PS2/PSP software totals should amount to as little as 50m-60m in the following fiscal year, and even though PS3 will probably grow again the company is in a real danger of not seeing software shipments top 200m in a few years.
FY 3/2009 - PSP + PS2 = 134m / PS3 - 103m
FY 3/2010 - PSP + PS2 = 97m/ PS3 - 143m (240m)
FY 3/2011 - PSP + PS2 = 55m / PS3 - 160m (215m)
FY 3/2012 - PSP + PS2 = 25m / PS3 - 140m (165m)
To me, it looks like they should probably try to launch PSP2 in late 2010 so that they don't dip under 200m. PS4 would make sense in late 2011.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
