SCE UK Boss - PS3 and PSP cross Sales Milestones in the UK
by Brett Walton, posted on 05 March 2009 / 2,285 Views
Sony Computer Entertainment UK has revealed that the PlayStation 3 has broken through the 2 million unit milestone in the UK, ahead of the second anniversary of its release in Europe, while the PlayStation Portable has now passed the 3 million mark nationally.
"It's a premium product, so therefore it costs a premium price, and that does give us issues in terms of the expected sell-through that analysts and the media want," explains Sony Computer Entertainment UK's Managing Director Ray Maguire, "but actually when you look at it in isolation: close to a million units in a year which is really tough, at a premium price, actually shows that's a great number."
Maguire also commented on sales of current UK #1 Killzone 2 "this is a series with a lot more stories to tell,” he said of Killzone as a franchise going forward "everyone is reporting really good sales of Killzone 2. We've seen not just a really good day one – but also for the game to be a good solid seller all the way through. We’ve got good bundles out there with hardware and software and that has picked up nicely according to our early numbers. It certainly has helped drive hardware I think there were a lot of people out there who wanted something which really showed the power of PlayStation 3 – and now they can see it it’s a reason for them to get on board."
VGChartz figures for this week show PS3 at 2.01m and PSP at 3.28m with PS3 seeing a 60% increase in sales from two weeks ago due to the release of Killzone 2.
Maguire also commented that Sony is going through a tough time at the moment, partly due to overarching issues that the company has no control over - although he is confident that its flagship console will continue to grow by around another 1 million units in the next 12 months. "I think it's a tough time for everyone," he said. "Probably more so in the UK, because we're hit by the effects of currencies - euro, pound, yen and dollar - and the weakness of the pound is definitely an issue that affects us more than the rest of SCEE. We have to do as much in this office as we can to make sure that we can build on the success we had last year in terms of the units we sold, great IPs that we had to bring to market.
"This year we've got even more, even better product to put out there - but trading is difficult, it's really tough. Just credit insurance - credit limits are going to be challenging for the whole of the year. These are things which are completely out of Sony's control - it's about the environment in which we trade, but we have to be responsible, we have to do what we need to do to make sure we give back to the shareholders what they need."
