New Pres and PS3 Shipment Figures for Sony
November 30, 2006
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Ken Kutaragi led the team that created PlayStation but the recent issues surrounding the introduction of PlayStation 3 seems to have taken their toll in the boardroom; Kaz Harai is Sony Computer Entertainment’s new president. Hirai has led the firm’s US business since 2003 and assumes the new Tokyo-based role today.
A Sony statement explained, “Kutaragi will continue to oversee the entire SCE group as chief executive officer, and will fully exercise his power to reinforce and further accelerate the development of the PlayStation business.”
Jack Tretton, currently head of Sony’s US gaming business, will replace Hirai as boss of Sony America. David Reeves has also now been appointed vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment. All moves are effective Friday.
Sony will ship just 500,000 to 800,000 PlayStation 3 consoles in North America by the year’s end, significantly less than its initial forecast of 1 million, EA CEO Larry Probst has told Reuters.
According to Probst, EA had set a lower bar for initial PS3 shipments, but “where they ended up was a bit of a surprise. We think they’ll get into that range,” he told Reuters, pointing out that console and software sales were typically sluggish to begin with because of low supply. Probst also made the intriguing claim that 20,000 of the 200,000 shipped launch PS3s were sold on eBay.
A report from prestigious British economic publication Financial Times shows how Sony’s hardware strategy for the PlayStation 3 is not exactly straightforward. According to an analyst quoted in the article, if Sony wants to break even on hardware costs (assuming that the company receives a $10 royalty on every PS3 game sold) will need to sell roughly 30 games for every PS3 console sold.
