Friday, October 20, 2006

PS3: How Many?

Next-Gen had an interview this week with Kaz Hirai (president of SCEA). Here's the part that's particularly interesting:
Next-Gen: Lets talk about the PS3’s unit numbers for launch…
Kaz Hirai: For day one, we are going to have a total 400,000 units for the launch period only for North America, and we expect to have about one million units by the end of the calendar year. These are some pretty aggressive numbers.

I bolded that last bit. Let me translate that for you: we're not shipping one million units to North America by the end of the year. That's clearly a seed being planted.

This is 100% speculation on my part, and I could be totally wrong. But given the entirely self-aggrandizing style of their executives for the last six months, for Hirai to express any doubt at all (and that was definitely doubt), it's clearly a red flag. Sony executives just don't use phrases like "...we expect to have about."

Here's the full interview.

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