Michael Ephraim, Managing Director of Sony for Australia and New Zealand, has had a sit down with Gamespot to discuss the recently announced release date for the Playstation 3 here in Australia, which will be on March 23rd.
Many questions are raised to Michael, about the reasons behind the absence of the 20gig PS3’s upon launch, and if any foreseeable shortages are expected. When asked on his thoughts about where the PS3 will stand in the ‘next-gen race’ being the last console released in Australia, Michael had the following to say:
I'm not too concerned. By coincidence, our launch in Australia is the exact day that the Xbox 360 launched here a year ago. I think it is public knowledge that Microsoft and retailers are disappointed with the numbers the 360 has done here. GfK Australia puts the 360 at about 150,000 units install base--we're sitting on 2.2 million on PS2, so there's a long way to go. We do not see the one year head start as insurmountable by any means at all; 150,000 is a nice number, but it is by no means 2 million.
The entire interview can be found at the following link.
If i have my facts straight... didnt the 360 acheive some milestone in australia that no other console has managed?... if so, i dont know how he can say that MS and retailers are disappointed.
Is this what you mean?
"The Xbox 360 was first released in Australia on March 23, 2006. GfK figures show that more than 100,000 units have been sold since then, along with more than 400,000 individual games for the system. By comparison, Sony's PlayStation 2 sold 78,000 consoles and 190,000 games in its first seven months in Australia.
While the 360 can now lay claim to being the fastest-selling home console, it is not the overall winner when handheld gaming devices are taken into account--that title goes to Nintendo's GameBoy Advance, which sold more than 128,000 units in its first seven months on sale. "
what an idiot.. mdobele's post proves that the 360 has done really well for the last 7 months. Let's see an interview with this loser in 7 months time when the ps3 is lucky to sell even 70,000 units. Average launch games.. useless and defunct blueray technology... the ps3 is doomed.
That was exactly the achievement I was talking about Mdobele, thanks for the find :D