PS3 delayed in Europe until September 07? (CVG)

True, but any numbers to Europe mean less units to the US. So, being generous, they are shipping 100K units per week now, that means...

Dec - 1 weeks (100k)
Jan - 4 weeks (500k)
Feb - 4 weeks (900k)
Mar - 5 weeks (1,400k)
Apr - 4 weeks (1,800k)
May - 4 weeks (2,200k)

So between now and the end of March Sony, if they continue at this pace (expecation: it WILL increase!!) they will have 1.4M new units from today and then in the channels.

The riddle Sony gets to answer: 1.4M units. How do you divide these and make sure consumers are happy and not being lured away? What is the best use of those units?

Is paper launching in Europe best? Is a delay in Europe the best? Or is a signifiacnt stockpile and launch (> 500k) the best strategy?

And how does the inevitable Xbox 360 price drop figure into these strategies?

 

Well, anything can happen really, so we can just wait and see. All i have to say is that if Sony keeps aside just 80k PS3's for the European launch, then there is seriously something wrong with them. And i don't expect them to do that. Sure they ignore Europe, but that would be just asking for trouble.

Since we're speculating however, it is obvious that the 100k a week figure will surely keep increasing. As blue diodes manufacturing kicks in properly (which is happening between now and the next few months increasingly), then the number of PS3's will also increase.

One thing i was thinking about today is:

It's quite ironic that people are arguing that Sony will never be able to sell as many PS3's as the number of PS2's sold today... I actually think that they'll be lucky if they can manufacture half the number of PS2 out today, in 5 or 6 years!!

 

Wasn't Sony making like ~ 20M a year for a while there? Right now that number seems quite insane for any of the 3 parties right now. And at the current pricing structure of the big 2 I don't think that will happen, at least not in 2007.

 

well Sony seem to be easily shipping 100K a week.

They SOLD 70,000+ in Japan last week, so assuming they are selling all they ship we can take that 70,000+ as a shipped number. The previous week to that in Japan they sold 50,000.

There also seems to be a surge of availability in the US/Canada with reports of many more in shops, Futureshop.ca had 300 PS3s online earlier today my time and other retailers have also put up quite significant numbers up online.

I'd be guessing they shipped ~200K last week, 130K into north america and 70K into Japan. If they can keep up that production level, i would expect March/April in EU/AU to be achievable.

Slightly OT is Shirioshi up yet? That is their laser diode factory it was due to start prodn of blue laser diodes Q4 calendar yr 2006

 

Well at this moment in time, there are no PS3's on shelves (they're all on ebay), so we can take the shipped numbers as sold numbers.

 

Well to me it looks like Sony has made nice progress with their manufacturing. It seems that stores are getting big shipments and the 70000 figure from Japan speaks for itself also. I think we have a decent change to get something like 500000 units for the european launch.

 

Their production might be closing 1M / month now. NA is getting atleast two times more PS3s than Japan.

 

It will be interesting when the price of the PS3 will start making demand lower than supply. When PS3's start sitting on shelves, then Sony will have to do something drastic about the price. At the moment the market can take that price because there are lots of people who are prepared to pay the extra just to have it now, but that won't last too long.

 

Yes I was also thinking that Sony may keep the launch numbers lower than they could, just to keep the demand higher for a bit, but 500000 will probably sell without problems and maybe there is still some hope for a bit lower EU price since the nice €-$ ratio right now. But in anycase Sony can't sell it for 600€ for long.

 

If they have BIG games, that could help them keep the price high for a bit longer, but it seems that their old big guns are either a long long way away, or multiplatform...

 

I believe you have answered your own question there, wrt Europe stockpiling. The easiest way to keep the demand-supply ratio high is to reduce supply temporarily. The last thing Sony needs is the media reporting that demand is getting low just two months after launch, and they know this.

Anyway, I'm not sure what's wrong with you guys wrt predicting production ramps. Sony is just about ready to produce 1M/month, and they're going to reach that goal before the european launch. Consider it this way; if Sony predicted that they'd produce a certain number of consoles by month as of a certain point in time, they need to have the production infrastructure ready for it, as well as the necessary contracts. Neither are free to waste. So, unless you're assuming Sony never, ever intended to achieve such a capacity ramp in such a timeframe...


Uttar

 

Sony Shiroishi Semiconductor's blue laser diode plant is up and has been since they started making PS3's. It's reactor problems caused the PS3 launch number holocaust remember.

 

Source?

Like Uttar mentioned, stockpiling units for Europe. But likewise it is a good way to keep the premium: when the premium demand dries up here, Europe will still be ripe for the initial picking and will be ready to buy up expensive PS3 units in droves.

I do think that is where they miscalculated in the US. I was pretty confident they could get out 5-6M units at the $500/$600 price plan EASY. But that was assuming their 4M CY 2006 numbers with a steady supply IMMEDIATELY after. Instead we saw the numbers cut from 4M, to 2M, to now seemingly 1M. Likewise Europe got delayed and big titles like Motorstorm and Heavenly Sword were unable to make the launch.

Just my opinion, but a 2007 price drop of significant I think will be required.

What is wrong?

Sony Official Projection : 4M units in CY 2006
Sony Official Exec Commenting on pre-launch : 2M units in CY 2006
Sony Official Comment on Exec : Still on pace for 4M units in CY 2006
Sony Official re-Projection : 2M units in CY 2006... just as we always said wink-wink
Sony delivers : ~ 1M units

At some point they will hit their 1M / month mark *that they announced way back in Spring 2006*. Sony should have been at 1M a month now as it is.

So the problem with us is observing that they have yet to meet their benchmarks. They didn't stockpile the 2M units expected, they are at half (or less) of their projected production peak they projected for the Fall timeframe, etc.

The production will ramp up (already is to a degree), but the problem is that it is a) late and b) way below projected levels set by Sony. So the real question isn't what is wrong with us, but what is wrong with Sony.

And if Sony cannot tell us with any amount of certainty when they will hit 1M/mo I am not sure anyone else can say with certainty until they do it.

 

It seems Sony's supply side problems are really starting to abate.

futureshop.ca sold 1000 PS3s today (Xmas day) in the last 4.5hrs. That's a fair chunk of stock to go on THE non-shopping day of the year. You'd have to imagine that they have a pretty big number available for boxing day in the b&m stores but we'll see i guess.

 

um, doesnt futureshop "sell" items regardless of them having it in stock or not?

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135332

There were also 2 more futureshop shipments about 3-4 days ago (Roughly 200 and 300 respectively). Use the search there.

 

Isn't March the start of their fiscal year?

 

Shouldn't it be April if 31st March is the last day of their FY... according to that Phil interview reported by ThreeSpeech ?

 

If they still have a component shortage of BRD drives and that is the actual bottleneck, then it's probably a pretty expensive one. Maintaining infrastructure that can churn out 1M/month (actually, one exec said they have 1.2M/month max capacity infrastructure) is not cheap when it's actually turning out much less than that.