Tech News

Sony PlayStation 3 shifts 165,000 units in the UK

By Stevie Smith Mar 27, 2007, 15:53 GMT

The delayed fever attributed to the recent European and Australian PlayStation 3 launches is (already?) beginning to subside, and with it Sony is lauding its new videogames console as a confirmed success.

Having already claimed that three-day UK sales of the PS3 have outstripped those amassed by the greying PlayStation 2 over the same launch period in November of 2000, Sony has now revealed sales of some 165,000 PS3 units since the console was officially launched at midnight on the Thursday 22 March. By comparison, around 20,000 units have been sold in Australia up to this point.

The launch figures, which have been confirmed by performance compiling specialists ChartTrack, now place the PlayStation 3 at the top of the sales tree in terms of opening numbers, marking it as the biggest-selling home videogame console to arrive on UK shores. The handheld PlayStation Portable still remains the number one piece of gaming hardware at launch, however, racking up an impressive 185,000 unit sales when it arrived at the tail end of 2005. Sony will be hoping that the PS3 doesn’t ultimately go the same way as the PSP, however, as it has since been superceded by the massive success of its market rival, the Nintendo DS.
 
Some sources are claiming that disappointing consumer desire is responsible for only three quarters of the UK’s initial shipment of 220,000 units finding their way into homes around the country. Yet, it’s worth noting that the PS3’s 165,000 launch sales vastly outperforms the launch weekends attributed to the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360, which only managed 105,000 and 70,000 units respectively – though well documented lack of availability likely influenced those restricted sales.
 
In Australia, which also received the PS3 last Friday – some four months after the U.S. and Japanese launches – sales figures for the console’s opening weekend returned with 20,000 units, which dropped short of the Nintendo Wii’s opening of 32,000 units, and the Xbox 360’s 30,000 units.