Word over on 1Up.com is that Sony still plans to have 1 million PlayStation 3s for North America by Dec. 31.
We will continue to utilize airfreight delivery for the PLAYSTATION 3 to assure a steady stream of systems for North American consumers through the end of the year. And while initial day-one launch shipment goals weren’t achievable due to early manufacturing issues, those problems have been resolved and we do remain focused on having one million PS3’s in the pipeline by December 31, 2006.
Of course, aside from the improbability of this actually being true, note the “in the pipeline” part there. If Sony doesn’t have 1 million in stores by Dec. 31, they can just claim everything that is in transit to North America as being in the pipeline. And while currently Sony is shipping every PS3 air direct over here, who knows when that will stop. If the shipping method changes on Dec. 30 and another quarter million ship the last day of the year that will take 12 days to get here, it still counts in the Sony counting method. Given that Sony only sold 197,000 PS3s in November (down from their 1 million, errr, 600,000, ummmmm, 400,000 at launch claims made earlier this year), I’m skeptical. Also:
The six-year old PlayStation 2 continues to dominate the market, outselling all other consoles in November, including much newer systems from the competition.
For values of “all other consoles” which don’t include the Nintendo DS, this is true. However, the DS selss as many systems as all other consoles combined in the typical month. Some don’t count the DS as a console, in which case this info doesn’t apply to them, but I think it is just another console for this sale information.ÂÂ
Ultimately, I think Microsoft and Sony botched their respective console launches. Only Nintendo really pulled of the launch well, and even there some troubles were seen. (via Kotaku)
[tags]Sony to get 1 million PS3s in pipeline by year end[/tags]