Another headache for Sony: falling PSP sales
As if the laptop battery recall and stumbles towards the launch of the PlayStation 3 weren't enough for it to deal with, Sony Corp. said this week that shipments of its PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld game device are well below expectations.
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., the unit of Sony responsible for PlayStation products, expected sales this year to be below 2005's levels, but they now appear to be falling much faster than initially anticipated -- and much sooner after the launch than was the case with the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles.
The PSP was launched in Japan on Dec. 12, 2004, and 3 million units were shipped by the end of March 2005, according to figures from Sony. In the financial year from April 2005 shipments jumped to 14.1 million units as the machine went on sale in North America and Europe. For the current fiscal year, from April 2006, Sony initially said it expected shipments would decline to 12 million units, but this week revised that figure to 9 million units.
Martyn Williams
October 27, 2006
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