Sony is confident about meeting its goal of selling 11 million PlayStation 3 units this fiscal year as the recent price cut and a slate of new games draw in consumers. “We’re very well-poised to get to that number on a worldwide basis,” Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, told Reuters in an interview. Sony’s fiscal year runs through the end of March.
A high price and relative lack of blockbuster games has dampened sales of the PlayStation 3, and Sony has tried hard to rectify both issues this week at E3, the $30 billion video game industry’s most important trade show. On Monday, Sony cut the PS3’s price in the United States by $100, or 17 percent, to $499, narrowing the gap with Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360, which comes in three versions priced between $300 and $480.
Since it went on sale last November, the PS3 has sold 1.4 million units in the United States through May, compared to 2.8 million units for Nintendo Wii console, according to market research firm NPD. The Xbox 360, which debuted in November 2005, has sold 5.6 million units.
[Via: Reuters UK]