PSP World

Sony Hardware Slips in January

Hardware sales across all of Sony's product lines were down in January 2009, compared to the same month a year ago. The PSP, PS2 and PS3 all saw their sales decline this past month, while rival Microsoft and Nintendo saw small increases in sales of their consoles.

Sony has blamed a strong Japanese Yen and a global recession for the lower sales numbers. The company has also said that despite the high cost of its PS3 console, it does not expect to reduce prices any time soon.

Sony’s hardware sales were lower than competitors last month, but they also reflected a decline year-over-year.
In January of 2008, the PS3 soled 269,000 units, but suffered a 24% decline at retail this year.

On the other hand, Microsoft saw sales grow by 25 per cent, from 230,000 units in January 2008 to 309,000 units in January 2009. The Nintendo Wii experienced a massive increase from 274,000 units to 676,000 units this year.

Sales of the handheld PSP also declined when compared with last year. In January of 2008, the company sold 230,000 units in the United States, compared to 172,300 this year. Meanwhile, it is clear that Sony is phasing out the PS2 console in North America. The workhorse console still managed to sell more than 100,000 units in January, but this marked a 62 per cent decline over last year when the PS2 sold 264,000 units.

The silver lining in this cloud is that although some consoles experienced weaker sales in January, the video game industry as a whole was 13% growth compared to 2008. If Sony can reduce costs and offer a price cut on its popular hardware, we have no doubt that the company can remain competitive in the rest of 2009.

[Source: NPD Group, Gamesindustry.biz]