http://www.mcvuk.com/opinion/32/The-PS3-powers-on
In terms of breakdown by Euro territories, the UK did very well. They are probably up to 25 per cent of business, so have made a great star. And we’re particularly pleased with Iberia and France. They are neck and neck.
Also this time we launched into our distributor territories, such as the Middle East and Eastern Europe. And that’s give us quite a boost. Russia too. And we’ve found it’s given us quite a boost in those markets, not only on hardware but software as well. The Middle East and Russia are quite a lucrative markets, with a lot of wealthy people there.
We’ve launched into about 100 territories. If include places like San Marino and the Vatican, we’ve got about 107 territories on board in total – that means we’re about 95 per cent of the way there. And we’ve done that in ten weeks.
In terms of software, we’ve sold in about two million pieces of first party software. And the big ones are Resistance: Fall of Man at about 600,000 (180,000 off here)units and Motorstorm at just over the 500,000 mark. We’re obviously very happy that thse two new IPs have done so well.
I can confirm that it’s highly unlikely that the 20Gb version will be launch in PAL territories. The majority of retailers are happy that we launched with just the one unit. It has made things simple for them.
As for the 80Gb console, there are markets like Korea where there’s very high broadband penetration and the people there are used to downloading content, so they require a certain size hard drive. But at the moment we don’t see a requirement for launching this version in Europe. Certainly not in the foreseeable future.
In terms of registered PlayStation Network users, we’re at around the 460,000 mark, which we’re very happy about. We have about about 100 pieces of content online in PAL territores. And we’ve achieved that in 10 weeks.
I don’t feel competing with Xbox Live; we feel we’re in a different stadium. And with the introduction of Home at Christmas, we’re going in a completely different direction with something very entertaining.
We don’t have our eyes on the competition in any way.