Sony Projecting 15m PS3s for FY 3/2011, 35.7m PS3s Shipped LTD

[TheSource]

This generation still has peaked.

FY 3/2006 - 3.2m systems

FY 3/2007 - 17.1m systems

FY 3/2008 - 35.8m systems

FY 3/2009 - 47.2m systems

FY 3/2010 - 43.5m systems

FY 3/2011 - Even if X360 is flat, and Wii/PS3 meet their projections you get 43m. I think X360 will be down though, and not entirely convinced Sony will meet the PS3 projection, or that Nintendo will meet the Wii projection.

Prices have come down in each subsequent year too. Fortunately, software between the three systems is still over 400m per year (estimating for X360)

Ail PS3 has a fairly low software purchasing rate compared to previous Playstations, and it just had a big decline:

PS3	HW FY	SW FY	SW FY/HW FY	SW FY/HW LTD	LTD SW/LTD HW	Year Ending
FY1	3.55	13.3	3.75	3.7465	3.746	Mar-07
FY2	9.12	57.9	6.35	4.5699	5.620	Mar-08
FY3	10.06	103.7	10.31	4.5623	7.695	Mar-09
FY4	13	115.6	8.89	3.2354	8.130	Mar-10

PS1 launched essentially a year earlier in Japan than elsewhere - but even if you compare FY5 PS1 to FY4 PS3, the PS3 sw purchasing rate is kind of low.

PS1	HW FY	SW FY	SW FY/HW FY	SW FY/HW LTD	LTD SW/LTD HW	Year Ending
FY1	0.85	3	3.53	3.5294	3.529	Mar-95
FY2	3.41	25	7.33	5.8685	6.573	Mar-96
FY3	9.24	70	7.58	5.1852	7.259	Mar-97
FY4	19.32	138	7.14	4.2048	7.191	Mar-98
FY5	21.60	194	8.98	3.5649	7.902	Mar-99
FY6	18.50	200	10.81	2.7427	8.640	Mar-00
FY7	9.31	135	14.50	1.6417	9.303	Mar-01
FY8	7.40	91	12.30	1.0153	9.550	Mar-02
FY9	6.78	61	9.00	0.6327	9.511	Mar-03
FY10	3.31	32	9.67	0.3209	9.517	Mar-04
FY11	2.77	10	3.61	0.0976	9.357	Mar-05
FY12		2	Incalculable	0.0195	9.377	Mar-06
FY13		1	Incalculable	0.0098	9.386	Mar-07

Note: The PS2 HW figures below combine production shipments and shipments - there is about a 4m redundancy - PS2 hw is "only" at 144.5m LTD by shipments. PS2 had a similar rate in FY5 (which excludes March 2000 the one month of FY1 where PS2 could be bought in Japan but nowhere else) but the base was already over 70m by production shipments - double PS3. In other words, the PS3, compared to PS1/PS2 is seeing its software purchasing rates dropoff fairly quickly already without the massive base PS1/PS2/Wii had to mask it. The rate is relatively high, but the base isn't - once hw moves past this peak phase, PS3 will drop below 100m sw / year fairly quickly.

PS2	HW FY	SW FY	SW FY/HW FY	SW FY/HW LTD	LTD SW/LTD HW	Year Ending
FY1	1.41	2.9	2.06	2.0567	2.057	Mar-00
FY2	9.20	35.4	3.85	3.3365	3.610	Mar-01
FY3	18.07	121.8	6.74	4.2469	5.582	Mar-02
FY4	22.52	189.9	8.43	3.7090	6.836	Mar-03
FY5	20.10	222.0	11.04	3.1136	8.022	Mar-04
FY6	16.17	252.0	15.58	2.8810	9.420	Mar-05
FY7	16.22	223.0	13.75	2.1506	10.097	Mar-06
FY8	14.71	193.5	13.15	1.6343	10.477	Mar-07
FY9	13.73	154.0	11.22	1.1655	10.554	Mar-08
FY10	7.91	83.5	10.56	0.5963	10.554	Mar-09
FY11	7.3	35.7	4.89	0.2423	10.274	Mar-10