Sony has said today that the company is well on its way to meet its forecasted PlayStation 3 fiscal year sales target of 15 million units.
The current fiscal year ends in March 2011.
“As of the end of August, sales look a bit better than we expected,” noted Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment (via Reuters).
Hirai, although bullish on the forecast, did remain somewhat muted, adding that the year-end holiday shopping season would be the real marker of how many units gets sold for the year.
Overall, the gaming industry has seen strong losses this year compared to 2009, with August alone seeing a 10 percent decline.
Sony plans to release its upcoming Move motion control system later this month.
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Sony Computer Entertainment said this morning that the oft-delayed PlayStation Home community online service was to be delayed again, marking the third official delay since the service was announced.
The service was initially announced in July 2007 and promised to “provide users with the ability to create their own avatars and participate in a real-time virtual world,” something like the popular Second Life community. At that announcement, Sony said it would be available in the fall of 2007 but then delayed it until spring of this year.
With the latest delay however comes the ability for more users to join a closed beta test. The full public beta will hit in “fall” of this year barring any other delays.
“We understand that we are asking PS3 and prospective PS3 users to wait a bit longer, but we have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today,” said Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, in a statement.
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Sony has confirmed that it will be bringing its anticipated movie download service to US PlayStation 3 users this summer. The PlayStation Network will be Sony’s first service to offer the movie downloads and the service will move to the popular handheld PSP later in the year.
Kazuo Hirai, head of the PlayStation division, said that they service will also be available to Japanese and European users as well, but details wont be available until next month at least.
Any official details will be revealed at the upcoming E3 expo in July, added Hirai. He also noted that they company was continuously cutting costs to achieve profitability for the division by the Q2 2009.
“Please expect more from our evolving PlayStation business,” Hirai told reporters.
With the announcement, also came word, through Sony documentation that the company was planning to offer a similar service through its video-capable Walkman line and through Internet Link enabled BRAVIA LCD TVs. No other details were available yet however.
