PLAYSTATION2 SHIPMENT DATA CLARIFIED BY SCE

Number of PS2 units that actually sold through overall to consumers of 40.04 million shipped remained unclear Fri. But Wedbush Morgan Securities Research Dir. Michael Pachter told us: “I think that it’s unlikely that Sony has ’stuffed the channel’ with inventory, so the 40 million unit number is probably pretty close to sellthrough. There should be between 1 and 3 million units in inventory at retail (assuming 60,000 retail locations and 30 units per store), so sellthrough is probably around 38 million to date for PS2.” In comparison, he said: “Xbox is probably around 4 million to date worldwide. It’s hard to peg the ‘exact’ number, but this is within 200,000 units. The Japanese sellthrough number is 274,000 units according to Microsoft in print this morning, and Europe is probably around the same number. GameCube has done 1.6 million in Japan as of this week, and around 2 million in the U.S. Europe data is tough to find, but I'd guess Europe is at around 400,000, so the total is probably 4 million, give or take 200,000.” Pachter said “overall console sales are running ahead of anyone’s expectations.”

Comment from SCE America (SCEA) on shipment figures wasn’t available, but SCE Europe (SCEE) spokesman told us: “The current installed base [sellthrough] of PS2 in the PAL territories is about 8.4 million. There is always a discrepancy between the factory shipments figure and the PAL sellthrough figures because of the timescale between leaving Japan and being sold at retail in Europe or any of the 102 PAL format territories that we look after. The gap between shipments and sellthrough tends to fluctuate throughout the year depending on season.” He said “the gap widens quite considerably [in 4th calendar quarter] as retailers stock up for the Christmas season.”

In announcing latest shipment figures last week, SCEE also said: “Since its European launch in November 2000, demand for PlayStation 2 across the SCEE territories has been phenomenal. Such is the global success of the PlayStation 2 that it has taken just [4.5] months for lifetime shipments to increase from the 30 million units announced in May 2002 to the 40 million units announced today.” SCEE Pres. Chris Deering said: “The multimillion-strong PlayStation 2 user base across Europe, Africa, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand continues to accelerate and to grow the market for computer entertainment on TV-based consoles. The recent and forthcoming lineup of new game designs on PlayStation 2 is the best in PlayStation history. Reviews have been outstanding, and the range of choice between now and Christmas is just awesome.”

Like competitor Microsoft (see separate report, this issue), SCE was at Tokyo Game Show Fri. showing off its online and offline PS2 games. But as expected (CED Sept 10 p2), Nintendo again was lone holdout among 3 main game system manufacturers.

In other PS2 news, published report indicated that at least some gamers taking part in online console gaming had been confronted with variety of unfair practices by fellow gamers. One apparent problem is players who take advantage of features in PS2 games allowing them to pause action so they can go to bathroom or refrigerator for snack, leaving opponents unable to continue playing for long periods of time. Still others apparently are choosing to stop playing when they realize they are about to lose. Frustrated opponent then sometimes disconnects from game and winds up becoming loser because first player to disconnect often is credited with loss. Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, at least some online gamers using broadband connections apparently are complaining that opponents using dial- up connections appear to be slowing gameplay. While there didn’t seem to be clear solution at this point to latter dilemma, SCEA spokeswoman last week said: “We at Sony Computer Entertainment America highly encourage good sportsmanship… Specific to NFL GameDay 2003, we have implemented a ‘Disconnect’ meter that registers every time a player quits a game early. Players will be able see the amount of disconnects their opponent has and determine whether or not they want to either challenge or accept the challenge from players with a high amount of disconnects.”

Meanwhile, SCEA said its PlayStation GameMobile would be hitting L.A. market Sept. 27-29 at Fry’s Electronics store in City of Industry. Forty-foot-long touring vehicle features 17 PS2 and PlayStation interactive kiosks that allow gamers to play latest games.