14 DAY TRIAL // Not too long ago, in July, Yankee Group analysts warned that Sony's ultimate console tech elitism could prove to be its downfall. The same company recently reached a different conclusion as Friday saw the release of another market prediction, a brighter future forecasting the Playstation 3 victory in the war of the next-gen consoles. Thus, by 2011 Playstation 3 should sell 30 million PS3s in North America, attaining a 44 percent market share. Bad news for Sony since they now hold sway over 60 percent of the market share, with the difference allegedly going to Microsoft's camp.
Sony Online Entertainment President Kaz Hirai seems to think otherwise, as recently stated in a Gamespot interview: "the numbers change depending on how you slice and dice the data. What I'm saying is, given any metric they use to chart sales between 2006 and 2011, or calendar year to date of 2001, whatever you do, when we look back, I'd like to think that our market share will be as good--if not better--than what we've accomplished with the PS2 in the same kind of time frame since launch."
Having learned from the problems that plagued Microsoft's Xbox 360 release, Hirai assures PS3 fans that launch preparations are right on schedule. There are 2 millions units expected to ship three months from now, partially distributed among the three great areas of interest. It appears Japan and US will get more out of the rough 700.000 unit quota. Due to logistical impossibility, there's bound to be some shortages, unless Sony postpones the release date altogether and stockpiles on consoles.
"We haven't started manufacturing yet. Some of our ops guys were actually just in China, and also in Japan just reviewing the [production] lines and everything else. But they are, again, preparing as we speak to get the manufacturing going. We've not announced and we haven't set really a specific date" added Hirai.