Sony still plans to ship 2 million PlayStation 3s by 2007

PS3 News | They probably need to get a move on though.

According to GameIndustryBiz, Sony believes it's still on track to ship 2 million PlayStation 3 units by the end of 2006, which is just two weeks and one day away.

Whilst speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Sony president Ryoji Chubachi stated, "It is true that it took us some time to bring the PS3 to mass production as blue laser availability worked as a bottleneck." Despite this bottleneck, Sony still seem confident it will be able to ship out more units, with Ryoji Chubachi stating that he doesn't think the company needs to revise shipment targets, arguing that, "2 million and 6 million are within our reach.''

The PlayStation 3 was originally intended to launch with 2,000,000 units, but - allegedly due to blue laser diode shortages - Sony later reduced the forecast to 400,000 for America and 100,000 to Japan. Then the firm missed even these modest targets, and by quite a margin too - less then 200,000 shipped in the US for November, and only about 80,000 made it to Japan at launch. Will the company make target this time? We'll know very shortly.

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20 Comments

Jellyfish

5 years ago

No way they'll hit that. Half of that figure is more reasonable, it's say 66-75% maximum though. At least they'll keep selling up and keeping demand up (maybe).

Zarnoss

5 years ago

2,000,000 units is absolutely gobsmacking if they do achieve it though.
Kind of mind blowing that that kind of output can come from a company somewhere.

David

5 years ago

It's basically impossible. There were less then 300,000 in the world at the end of November, and they've only sold 100,000 in Japan since then, along with another 150,000 (max) in the US.

There is no way they can get another 1.5 million onto shelves, or even into warehouses, in 15 days.

Ellegarden

5 years ago

I could assume that maybe the diode for blu-ray have been indefenite supply so making the already half altered manufacturing to full.

Marka

5 years ago

About 3 weeks to ship about 1.5 million PS3s. I dont really see it happaning. Sony probably know this. Sony lieing to it's consumers again.

Karai Pantsu

5 years ago

While I have no doubt that they be able to sell 2-million in a reasonbly short time, I'm with David on the "here is no way they can get another 1.5 million onto shelves, or even into warehouses, in 15 days."

Although I suppose that keeping people under the impression that a windfall of stock is going to hit at any moment is a good way to keep them from spending their PS3 savings on something else in the meantime.

renegadesx

5 years ago

Karai Pantsu wrote

True, 2 million within the next couple of weeks is almost impossible but its not bad marketing stratergy.

Crestfallen

5 years ago

Marka wrote

About 3 weeks to ship about 1.5 million PS3s. I dont really see it happaning. Sony probably know this. Sony lieing to it's consumers again.

sony want your money. microsoft want your money. nintendo want your money. get over it.

NeoSanity

5 years ago

crestfallen12 wrote

Sony want your money. Microsoft want your money. Nintendo want your money. Get over it.

Wow someone did year 8 Commerce...

I still don't get why there are no short supply of Samsung Blu-ray players and Panasonic Digital recorders with Blu-ray in them, and then the new blu-ray Sony laptop that's just hit the US markets.
Yet Sony can't seem to produce half a million diodes at launch.
I mean blu-ray has started to flood the US market with a couple million players/laptops/internal drives yet Sony being the main advocate (ie. Sponsor) of blu-ray can't seem to string together half a million diodes for the launch of their most invested in project in the last decade.

Is it just me or is some internel executive seem to be nailing down the Playstation coffin?

magrat

5 years ago

NeoSanity wrote

Is it just me or is some internel executive seem to be nailing down the Playstation coffin?

There could well be competition within Sony for Blu-Ray drives between the laptop, stand-alone player and PS3 products. I imagine it could make for an interesting boardroom meeting when trying to divy up their supply!

NeoSanity

5 years ago

magrat wrote

NeoSanity wrote

Is it just me or is some internel executive seem to be nailing down the Playstation coffin?

Though you'd really want to put the resources into something you've invested an inprecidented amount money into.

magrat

5 years ago

NeoSanity wrote

Though you'd really want to put the resources into something you've invested an inprecidented amount money into.

You'd think so, but it depends I guess...say for instance if you need to post some profits fast you might put it into something that will make you money immediately (like the laptop or standalone player) as opposed to a loss-leading product that you are then relying on software sales to make your money on. Who knows, perhaps Sony's lawyers have advised them to start stockpiling the cash in case the whole battery saga gets ugly. Sony might also have obligations to meet with their other Blu-Ray products - and if they can't keep up shipments of players to retailers they might get replaced with HD-DVD players in the stores or face penalties.

Ellegarden

5 years ago

NeoSanity wrote

crestfallen12 wrote

Sony want your money. Microsoft want your money. Nintendo want your money. Get over it.

Yet Sony can't seem to produce half a million diodes at launch.
I mean blu-ray has started to flood the US market with a couple million players/laptops/internal drives yet Sony being the main advocate (ie. Sponsor) of blu-ray can't seem to string together half a million diodes for the launch of their most invested in project in the last decade.

Au contrair mon frere, the diode was due to bad shipping or lack of shipping from supplier, this has nothing to do with Sony as it does with the firm that distributes the components. Sony would rather recoup their loses from blu-ray rather then lose blu-ray in total. It would pointless for them to do that, whether you like to admit or not Sony do deserve a little more credibility considering they are worldwide firm.

Rob_Jedi

5 years ago

Since Blu Ray is a Sony created format aren't THEY the supplier? I was under the impression they were tooling their own hardware to later reap cheaper manufactoring. So they are the ones to blame for this.

The idea that the different divisions are fighting for the blue lasers though is totally credible, Sony is setup in a strange way, divisions do not cooperate, they compete with each other.

NeoSanity

5 years ago

Rob_Jedi wrote

I wouldn't be suprisied if there were totally different outlets and susities of Sony that meant shipping and manafacturing would have very little to do with Sony at all.

Ellegarden

5 years ago

Rob_Jedi wrote

Umm..No Sony are manufacturer and one of the regular supplier of blu-ray but the component used will always come from another electronics firms it has nothing specific to do with Sony.

magrat

5 years ago

UmbrellaCEO wrote

Umm..No Sony are manufacturer and one of the regular supplier of blu-ray but the component used will always come from another electronics firms it has nothing specific to do with Sony.

My understanding is Sony is one of the manufacturers of blue laser diodes, which are the parts with the high defect rate. The largest one is Nichia, which apparently produces something like 80% of the blue diodes, but neither them or Sony seem to be able to get decent yields. Had to find decent information though

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1871363,00.html

Sony's announcement last week of delays to the PlayStation 3 (PS3) in Europe was blamed solely on the difficulties in making one component: the blue laser diode for the built-in Blu-ray player.
Mass production of blue laser diodes is tricky. Light-emitting diode (LED) maker Nichia, which currently makes 80% of the global blue laser diode supply, reported that its yield rate for blue laser diodes has reached 30% - still behind demand. ...
Despite Nichia and Sony having cross-licensed their patents to speed development of blue diodes in April 2004, neither has cracked the problem of pushing yields up.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/08/29/blue_laser_diode_dearth/

Back then it was claimed Sony was dedicated its blue-laser diode production to its PlayStation 3 manufacturing process.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Bluray_Causes_PS3_Delay_in_Europe/1157552739

Sony is the principal supplier of blue laser diodes, not only for its own Blu-ray Disc players and PS3 consoles, but also for other BD manufacturers as well, including player makers ****, Pioneer and Philips. Sony also supplies diodes for Blu-ray burners.

That last one is a bit contradictory to the earlier ones, which makes the whole business a bit more murky, but the general point is that Sony do make blue laser diodes, and their yield rates must be as low as Nichias, else there would be PS3s everywhere.

Ellegarden

5 years ago

magrat wrote

That last one is a bit contradictory to the earlier ones, which makes the whole business a bit more murky, but the general point is that Sony do make blue laser diodes, and their yield rates must be as low as Nichias, else there would be PS3s everywhere.

From my understanding they arent, the quote you just gave stated 80% of diodes were produced by nichias, 20% of production by sony would seem contradictory if they were the largest supplier of those diodes. From my understanding hardly any companies produces electronic components they tend to get supplies from major firms, there's one reason for that mainly cause producing parts tend to require high investment, and to over turn investment costs you need to drive harder with components sales which sony cant do with own products, thus a market with components come in play.

But it did make one good point, if sony is the middle man between nichias and other companies then I suppose they do have responsibility.

NeoSanity

5 years ago

UmbrellaCEO wrote

magrat wrote

If it is their fault then maybe someone on the inside is slowly pulling the plug on the Playstation project or something.
I mean there's no real rush for Blu-Ray, the first HD-DVD players won't be out until 2007. Atlas they'll probably be much cheaper and more consumer friendly. So I can also see why they want to flog blu-ray now onto the worldwide consumer market.
When you look at the graphics the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 are pretty much on par with each other. Thus it makes the Xbox 360 a real competitor with the new consoles on the block.

Why am I saying this? Well I'm trying to prove the point that someone within Sony are trying to pull the plug on Playstation's budget.

Ellegarden

5 years ago

NeoSanity wrote

Why am I saying this? Well I'm trying to prove the point that someone within Sony are trying to pull the plug on Playstation's budget.

Unlikely, if you care to look PS2 one of the good reason DVD did well. If you think about it pulling the plug on PS3 would then hurt the company on a whole. Not matter how much executives tell you, there's one reason only why they chose blu-ray (you can pull next-gen games off DVD), to help its blu-ray push. Taking loses from PS3 adding to push of a successful medium, overcomes that. As time goes R&D cost will drop, sales from software will pick, at least in thats what they think.

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