Meanwhile, despite industry slump PlayStation has record year

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 09 February 2011 15:29

Your IT - Entertainment

Wait a minute, how can this be?  The industry slumps yet all players say they had a great year.  Obviously you can do anything with numbers.  Sony reports strongest platform results for the Australian video-game industry.

Ok, I need to employee some un-spin doctors to work out what happened here.  On one hand we are told the industry went backwards last year, and on the other hand both Microsoft with its Xbox 360 and now Sony with its PlayStation brand are crowing about how good 2010 was.

Either Nintendo had quite a bad 2010, bringing the industry down, or It's all in how and which numbers you analyse.  Below is how Sony are looking at 2010 for PlayStation in Australia, including PS3's given away as part of Bravia TV sales promotions boosted the figures, but certainly Sony seems happy with 2010:

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia (SCE Aust.) today revealed another strong performance for the total PlayStation 3 (PS3) platform which in both real and relative terms outperformed other competitive game platforms, in both value and unit growth. PS3 platform achieved the number one place in terms of value and year on year value growth, representing 27% of the approximate AU$1.7 billion industry accounting for AU$469 million across more than 5 million units of PS3 product. The latter, reflects a 41% uplift for the PS3 platform in calendar year unit sales. This solid year-on-year growth comes off the back of strong platform results the year prior, and is indicative of the continued momentum of the PlayStation brand, devices and entertainment content available in Australia.

Michael Ephraim, Managing Director Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, said: 'PlayStation 3 as a platform continues to outperform and grow, even during the double digit industry wide downturn last year. Our consumers are responding to the increased entertainment content offering, from both our company and our network of partners, enjoying the benefits derived from our ongoing technical innovation, and also the more connected network experiences we continue to offer.'

He added 'Today's result announcement reflects Sony Computer Entertainment Australia's strong capability to deliver in 2011.'

Hardware
Total industry hardware value in Australia eclipsed $520 million in 2010, with the PS3 device deriving the greatest value share of hardware sales within the industry accounting for approx. AU$138.5 million, or 26.5%.

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