At the launch of PlayTV in Sydney yesterday, Michael Ephraim, managing director, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, highlighted that the company has now sold 675,000 PS3 consoles. 20 per cent of these have come in the last three months since the new slimmer, cheaper model was released.
“In September, Playstation 3 experienced a dramatic uplift in sales thanks to a major price drop, attractive new slim design and a major increase in storage capacity. More Australian homes are now enjoying the full entertainment experience that Playstation 3 offers,” he said.
“Our new TV on demand offering compliments PS3s broad entertainment offering credentials and many are now experiencing the best Blu-ray playback capabilities, music video streaming, storing and displaying your family pictures, surfing the web, and accessing new content and social experiences that Playstation 3 offers.”
Ephraim emphasised just how significant the latest price cut was in the take up of the console over the last few months.
“We now have over 675,000 Playstation 3 consoles in homes and about 20 per cent of those were installed just in the last three months since the new model was released,” he said.
In addition to this, Ephraim discussed the immense popularity of VidZone, the free music video service launched back in June.
“In June this year we enhanced our music offering with VidZone, a unique optimised internet application that offered a free video music streaming service,” he said.
Today we are very glad to announce that over six million videos have been streamed in Australia. Subsequently it has now been selected by artists like Powderfinger, U2, Groove Armada and The Prodigy as the music video platform of choice for their new debuts because of the rate that PS3 users have embraced it since launch.”