PlayStation 3 on the rise in Europe?

By Stevie Smith Jan 22, 2008, 12:13 GMT

Price cuts and the 40GB model improve PS3 sales in Europe. Credit: Joka2000

Long awaited price cuts and the introduction of the scaled-back value 40GB PlayStation 3 have helped Sony Corp. to make its mark on the European market in the face of stiff competition from Microsoft and Nintendo, reports Bloomberg.

Moreover, according to Sony Computer Entertainment president Kaz Hirai, the Japanese electronics giant managed to ship (to European retailers) around 1.2 million units of the PlayStation 3 videogames console during the five-week seasonal run through to December 31, 2007. Hirai also noted that such performance is in line with US shipments during the same period.

However, despite a solid end to 2007, analysts from both Nikko Citigroup and the Daiwa Institute maintain that rival pressures in the marketplace will see Sony fall some way short of its PlayStation 3 sales target of 11 million when the console hits its first Euro birthday in March of 2008.

If the PS3 does indeed miss its projected target, it will likely be as a result – at least in part – of Sony posting seven consecutive quarters of losses through its videogames division.

That being said, Nikko Citigroup offers that increasing sales performance and decreasing per-unit production costs, which have now fallen from $800 USD to $400 USD, will help Sony lower is operating losses by approx 90 percent to $158 million USD by the end of the fiscal year.

Bloomberg states that Sony’s boost in PlayStation 3 sales figures has arrived on the back of price cuts in Europe (17 percent), US (17 percent) and Japan (approx 10 percent) in order to compete more proactively with the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, both of which are generally available at a cheaper price point.