Sony CONFIDENT sales of PS3 to top 11 million by End of this fiscal year!!

[shams]

rickytan said:
I don't know why everyone's ripping on sony here. the 11 million or whatever it is, is an estimate! its not a guarentee, its not a promise, so why make a big deal about it?

Its not an estimate. A corporate, financial forecast is supposed to be as accurate as possible. Companies hire many people, and pay them large amounts of money to come up with these numbers.

In many ways, the perceived quality of a company is based on how accurate their forecasts are.

(and there isn't really any issue with upping the numbers - if a product sells better than expected, no issues there!)

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In my opinion, this is another issue of 'Sony arrogance'. From the minute it was issued, it was seen as completely unrealistic. Sony have had TWO chances now to amend the figures - and have taken neither. At the end of this qrt, they have one more chance (not sure when the quarterly statement for end of '07 is issued - maybe early Feb or something like that).

There is no shame in amending the figures to, say... 9m. Its better to be conservative rather than overly bullish.

IMO - this is a ploy to get publishers "excited" about the future PS3 performance (aka EA's comments not that long ago), and prevent more publishers from dropping PS3 titles (or making them X-platform).

Say Ninty forecast 50m Wiis for the next 12 months. Its a completely unrealistic figure - but it would excite a lot of people. Their share price would skyrocket. It might even be enough to get publishers to immediately divert funds to Wii development - on the spot.

Its only 12 months later, than the numbers are seen as "wrong" - and they take some flak for a bad prediction. But in the meantime - they reap the benefits of increased 3rd-party support.

(do it too many times though - and people cease to believe your projections - then there is trouble...)

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If they manage to legitimately hit these numbers, I'll happily EAT CROW over this.