PlayStation 3: Signs of Struggle

A trio of stories today are not painting a happy picture for the executives at Sony. EB/Gamestop is offering a discount on new PS3s in a deal that, with trade, brings the price down to Xbox 360 levels, GameWorldNetwork reports.

At Gamasutra, they're reporting that Sony has now shipped 2-million units worldwide with 1-million in Japan and 1-million in North America. They had hoped to do this before the end of 2006.

Finally, Next Generation reports that analysts have slashed their predictions for the PS3, in part due to poor sales. While the company has 1-million units in North America, Nomura estimates that they have only sold 687,300. In Japan sales only reached 466,716, or half of what Nintendo's Wii sold. The company also slashed its prediction of how many PS3s Sony would ship in this fiscal year to 4.5-million, down from 6. They also believe Sony will only sell 10-million PS3s in its next fiscal year, down from their original guess of 16 and 11-million the following year, down from 18.

Special thanks to Slashdot Games who pointed us in the right direction on a couple of these stories.