Sony is currently shipping its PS3 game consoles at a rate of about one million units per month due to an increasing supply of pick-up heads (PUHs) from Sharp for its Blu-ray drive, the Chinese-language Commercial Times quoted market sources as saying in a March 1 report. With a planned March launch in Europe and later on in Australia, total PS3 shipments are expected to top 3-4 million units in the first quarter of this year, as compared to the two million units shipped in the fourth quarter of 2006, the paper said, citing estimates by analysts at Taiwan-based securities houses. For 2007, total shipments of PS3 consoles are expected to top 12-14 million units, the paper indicated. Optimistic to say the least

They did say shipped, not sold to actual customers.

Its great to know that they have the ability to manufacture & ship 12-14m units. Question is: How is Sony going to manage to sell that many units?

Selling about 250k-300k / month in the US, and about 100k/month in Japan. That is a lot of spare units... I can't see any chance of them selling more than 5-6mill (8m at most) this FY - so at best 4mill spare, and at worst 8mill units shipped not sold. Pretty crazy.

wher did my post go ? i did post a reply but its not ther ? any how se eing Sony will sell some 650-700k a month WW come april 300 k a month in Americas and 300k a month in EU+others and finaly 100-150k a month in Japan that ads up to just about 700k a month from april untill november so shipin 1m a month wont be a probelm WW

Yup... and the remaining 300k? 300k x 12 = approx 4mill. Then again, Sony already claim 4mill shipped this year... where are they? Not in the US or Japan?? Say they sell 1 mill at the end of March in Europe (on day 1). That makes about 800k in the US, maybe 400k in Japan - and 1 mill in Europe (units sold in 2007 - not total). Total 2.2mill sold in the first qrt of 2007 (and including a launch in Europe). Out of 4mill shipped. That is a lot of unsold consoles piling up in retailers and warehouses...

If Sony can produce that many, good for them. However with the current state of demand, they should probably limit production to say 750K a month until they can get production costs down further. Let's face facts here people, they won't be selling out anytime soon, actually I doubt they'll sell out ever, but by reducing production and letting the already supplied consoles sell out, they not only save money, they'll make more in the long run. Of course Sony has no business common sense, so let them produce 1m a month.

Tidus: Correlation =! Causation. It does happen that usually the more a given product is made, the cheaper it gets to make it, but one does not cause the other. It is in a manufacturer's best interest to reduce the costs of producing a popular product. Therefore over time most popular products will become cheaper to make, but that is not to say that simply producing a large number of a given product will cause it be become cheaper to produce.