PS3 sales at UK launch.

[Diamond.G]

I have a small question. Has Region B bluray drive been available in Europe? From what I have been able to tell, it looks as though HD-DVD as been selling in some european places for a while (TFE HD-DVD FTW!!!).

If they haven't been selling for a while, could it be that this is the first big push for Bluray over on the other side of the pond?

Along side the process refesh, and such.

 

[PatrickL]

I have to agree with shifty here; I went to the FNAC Nice (50 m from my office) at lunch anf i could see Xbox360 and PS3 for sale (one demo station for the 360 and 4 for the PS3) the clerk was unable to tell us when they will get their next Wii and he had STILL a lot of preordered.

 

[lefizz]

Just to comfirm Sony are not selling the 20 gig unit in PAL regions.
How long this last i guess depends on other criteria, I imagine if sales remain bouyant they will leave it as 60 gig units only and if they start to flag maybe the 20 gig with be introduced as a way to lower the cost of entry rather than cost the actual rrp.

This would seem to make sense to me, it also probably makes sense not to try and sell early adopter 20 gig units since both these and the core 360 units dont go down well with the ealry adopter crowd as Sony found in the US and MS found everywhere at launch.

I have to say that consdering the fact sony claim 165k units were sold in the u.k. over the weekend it was a very very low key launch with very little buzz about it. Units are still freely avaible everywhere and 2 online retailers (aria.co.uk and the other i forget) have already discounted the units to £399. The other really weird thign is that high street shops were offering discount bundles i.e. buy 2 games and a ps3 save £30, prior to launch. This sort of thing only happened maybe 6 month after the 360 launch. And Wii's my god the second hand price of one in london is currently ruunging at £240 when the retail price is £180. Demand is so far outstripping supply its plain madness.

This really is the oddest console war i have ever experienced in my 34 years, still all good fun!

 

[TheChefO]

Amount of supply doesn't affect logistics. Nintendo know how many units they are making. They know how many they are shipping to which territories. They know when those ships go out, and when they're expected to arrive. They can inform the retail chains how much supply is coming, when, and make sure when it arrives in the country it's distributed quickly the retail stores. That's the logistics of supply management and its independent of supply. If Nintendo were making 1 million a month and selling 900k a month worldwide, they'd say to the retail chains 'here's the shipping dates of when you'll next get stock.' If they're making 1 million a month and selling 1 million a month in any territory, they can say to the retail chains 'it'll be 3 months before your next resupply' as they distribute each million units to a territory in turn. Or they can say the US will be getting 400k, and the EU will be getting 200k, and GAME in the UK will receive 40,000k on the 5th of every month. The people at GAME have no idea when they're going to get stock. Nintendo are not on top of the logistics. Either they're not informing the retail chains what their resupply strategy is, or they don't know what shipments they've sent where.

I have to agree with shifty here; I went to the FNAC Nice (50 m from my office) at lunch anf i could see Xbox360 and PS3 for sale (one demo station for the 360 and 4 for the PS3) the clerk was unable to tell us when they will get their next Wii and he had STILL a lot of preordered.

I agree with the concern as well and it is a shame as I'm still actively searching for one ( I heard early April). But in context, the original logistic statement was one of contrast with xb360 and Wii as some sort of advantage that Sony had over these offerings which I disagree with. The advantage is: Sony has been able to supply more than Demand at launch where Nintendo and MS were unable to do so. Do they have better logistics, perhaps. Is it an advantage that is showing up at this point? I don't think so.

 

[scooby_dooby]

As mentioned elsewhere, GAME commends Sony on its professional handling of supply. Stock is known to be on the way and well timetabled, distributed to the firms' own warehouses. In comparison, XB360 launch was rather shoddy in terms of resupply, supposedly, and Wii is just a mess, with no-one having any idea what the restocking situation is or when they can expect delivery.

Of course, better to say Sony aren't selling PS3's and Wii are selling out faster than they can be stocked, rather than consider the complexities of supply chains...

People make some pretty bizarre leaps of logic sometimes. Like every time a retail company has a sale on an item, that has to prove that item isn't being bought and they're desperate to shift stock. The world isn't that simple that stock on shelves means no-one's buying it. We have sales figures to tell us how much is being sold.

Talk about bizarre logic, it's a little strange to talk about how great Sony is handling the launch with their abundant supply, when the fact is, that extra supply is a direct result of lowered demand in the other two territories, and the fact that they have not even come close to their sales targets in JPN and the US.

Sony probably could've launched with twice as many units as they did if they thought demand was there.

 

[TheChefO]

Chef - You are f**king everywhere in these forums. Are you attached to a coffe IV?

no coffee surprisingly ... I'll need some this afternoon! :smile:

Scooby - exactly!

Spindoctors made a couple good songs, but seriously ...

 

[Evildeus]

The question would be: are WII buyers ready to wait a few weeks or not? If not are they buying a replacement console? If yes, a PS3 or a XBOX 360? You can lose a bit of customers, but not much, and anyway the WII is a lot cheaper

 

[patsu]

Talk about bizarre logic, it's a little strange to talk about how great Sony is handling the launch with their abundant supply, when the fact is, that extra supply is a direct result of lowered demand in the other two territories, and the fact that they have not even come close to their sales targets in JPN and the US.

What were the official Sony sales targets in US and JPN ?

Sony probably could've launched with twice as many units as they did if they thought demand was there.

I thought the stated shipment target was 6 mil by March ? A couple of months ago, people were saying Sony couldn't meet this target, or doubting their words.

Where would they get twice the units from should "demand was there" ?

 

[scooby_dooby]

What were the official Sony sales targets in US and JPN ?



I thought the stated shipment target was 6 mil by March ? A couple of months ago, people were saying Sony couldn't meet this target, or doubting their words.

Where would they get twice the units from should "demand was there" ?

They've sold only 2million consoles, even if they only reached 2/3rds of their stated production, they could have 1.5million+ on hand easily enough.

I don't know what the official targets were, but I hope we can all agree they were more than 1million for the US over 4months, and 30k/week for JPN.

If they ever truly intended to ship 6million to retailers by march, they would've had to sell 4-5million in JPN and NA, instead they sold ~2million, well you can do the math.

 

[TheChefO]

What were the official Sony sales targets in US and JPN ?



I thought the stated shipment target was 6 mil by March ? A couple of months ago, people were saying Sony couldn't meet this target, or doubting their words.

Where would they get twice the units from should "demand was there" ?

Even though Sony said they were having manufacturing difficulties at first, they did follow that up with "we will meet our shipment target of 6m". Having said that, I'm pretty sure they haven't shipped 4m worldwide prior to the EU launch so that would leave 2m for Europe.

too late.

 

[NERO]

Talk about bizarre logic, it's a little strange to talk about how great Sony is handling the launch with their abundant supply, when the fact is, that extra supply is a direct result of lowered demand in the other two territories, and the fact that they have not even come close to their sales targets in JPN and the US.

Sony probably could've launched with twice as many units as they did if they thought demand was there.

You might have seen my inquiry post about how supply constrained Sony is. The reason I asked it is because I initially considered your above logic - countering Shifty's logic - which doesn't seem to be correct. I thought (and please correct me if I am off) that since there is a different revision - smaller chip, no ee, software emu - debuting in Europe, Sony's over-supply in the US has no bearing on the supply to the EU/UK market.

 

[scooby_dooby]

You might have seen my inquiry post about how supply constrained Sony is. The reason I asked it is because I initially considered your above logic - countering Shifty's logic - which doesn't seem to be correct. I thought (and please correct me if I am off) that since there is a different revision - smaller chip, no ee, software emu - debuting in Europe, Sony's over-supply in the US has no bearing on the supply to the EU/UK market.

Hmm, that is an interesting point, and something I didn't consider.

 

[patsu]

They've sold only 2million consoles, even if they only reached 2/3rds of their stated production, they could have 1.5million+ on hand easily enough.

I don't know what the official targets were, but I hope we can all agree they were more than 1million for the US over 5months, and 30k/week for JPN.

Why ? We know there are few games, we know most are sold as 60Gb (599), some with more expensive bundles.

Can they not try for a few quarters to see how well they can skim the market ? Mind you, I don't have the answers but I am curious why people are so sure.

EDIT:

Even though Sony said they were having manufacturing difficulties at first, they did follow that up with "we will meet our shipment target of 6m". Having said that, I'm pretty sure they haven't shipped 4m worldwide prior to the EU launch so that would leave 2m for Europe.

too late.

We will know in their annual report. I wouldn't be surprized if they found out that they can't skim the market that well and decided not to activate the extra capacity. Would be a good checkpoint to know where they stand by then.

This is the latest I can find on the subject: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13161

 

[NERO]

Hmm, that is an interesting point, and something I didn't consider.

Trust me, I didn't consider it at first and it probably says more about wholesaling distribution strategies (en general) across regions than just Sony in Europe. You see the consoles that are shipped to the US, for example, must be purchased and therefore taxed. If there is an excess they will likely not risk going through the cycle again - or probably are not legally capable of redirection.