Sorry for another doom thread and such, but I realised in another thread that Sony's target of 10 million PS3s shipped for the fiscal year no longer looks laughably undercut.

I remember thinking back when Sony released their forcast that they must be underestimating in order for them to outstrip the target to make themselves look good after not reaching the target for the previous year (original target was 11 million, which was revised to 9 million around Christmas, and they managed to ship 9.24 million for that year) and most agreed at the time that Sony should easily exceed 10 million shipped, probably by 2 million or so.

Now however it is within the realms of possibility that they will not achieve 10 million without artificial overstuffing. The first two quarters of the year (April through September) have been pretty impressive, with 4 million PS3s shipped. We have yet to see the figures for Q3, but they seem to be selling slower than last year, and to be honest last year Sony had good reasons for shipping more than was needed (price cut and new 40G model), things which they don't have this year. So it's possible Q3 and Q4 will fall short of what they were 12 months ago, say 4 million for Q3, and short of 2 million for Q4 (last year they were 4.9 million and 2.33 million, but like I said, that was when Sony had a better excuse for shipping extra PS3s)

I think it is best to wait for the Q3 fiscals to be sure about it, (probably released in about a month) but for now I am noting it down as a reasonable possibility. If Q3 does indeed turn out lower than 4 million, then I can't see tham making up any more than 2 million for Q4, which would mean they shipped fewer than 10 million in the year.

(All references to quarters in this thread are for Sony's fiscal year, which means Q1 is April, May and June..... Q2 is July, August and September, etc)

Meanwhile, nintendo are throwing wiis onto the shop shelves

@colonelstubbs

I saw an image of Reggie in his home (guessing) holding a Wii behind him while waving a gun in group rabbid fans faces, he said something like.

"Just hold on we will make more, but you can't take mine!"

^^ LOL!

The ps3 is selling slower than last year? Really now, because vgchartz shows it selling around the same if not slightly better than last year..

they may not sell them, but they will shipped them.

Also vgchartz shows that the ps3 has sold almost 10 million consoles in 2008, and the year isnt eve out.

IF WE GO by April which is when the fiscal year starts? The ps3 has sold 7.4Million consoles to date, and thats consumer sales, and the year isnt out, and the fiscal year ends in march.

 Haha, i love it!

The last couple of months it has been slower than last year, but we are talking shipments here.... last year the PS3 was still relatively new, it hadn't built up a full shop stock, particularly as the 40G had to be rolled out for Christmas too, which means shipments for Q3 were larger than they would have been without the price drop/40G.

Shipments for that period last year were 4.9 million.

Sales for Q3 by VGC are down slightly from last year (3.52 down to 3.13 million for the same period, and the next weeks will see them further apart) but as has been said here before, sales /= shipments..... after all Sony shipped 4.9 million last year but only saw 3.9 million sales.... usually shipments are overcompensated in Q3, but suffer in Q4 or Q1 because of it.

but what I am saying is Sony have less ability to overcompensate in Q3 because they don't have a big price cut and new model to convince shops to stock more, add that to the lower sales figures and the shipments for this year might not massively exceed the sales like thay did last year.... and if the sales stay low in January then shipments in Q4 are likely to fall short of the previous year too.

----
Overall they will still exceed what they shipped last fiscal year (9.24 million) because they had a considerably better Q1 and 2. (Q1 and 2 last year suffered because Sony overshipped the PS3 for Q4 of the previous year, so there were way too many in stock and shipments almost came to a halt in Q1)

Yes April is when Q1 starts.

7.4 million, add in 2 weeks to round out Q3 and the PS3 should be over 8 million in sales.... can it make 2 million in sales for Jan, Feb and March?... I don't know, we shall see.

But once again, shipments /= sales (certainly not for the PS3) sure they even out if you look at a big enough time span, but 1 quarter the sales might exceed the shipments, with the following quarter being the opposite to counterbalance. My reasoning is that last year Sony had good reason to put lots of stock into the market for Q3 and Q1.... in other words shipments were more than sales for that period. This year they don't have the ability to stuff much more than they sell for the period.

I am not saying I will be right, I am just saying it is possible Sony will fall short of their 10 million target.