2009 a Platinum Year for PlayStation
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) continues to deliver premium entertainment content and experiences, kicking off 2009 with the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3) blockbuster exclusive Killzone® 2 on February 27. With more than 1 million copies sold worldwide and a truly “only on PlayStation” experience, the hit game has garnered the biggest initial success at retail of any first-party PS3 title to date, and will continue to drive incentive for hardware sales throughout the year.
MLB® 09 THE Show™ is also garnering tremendous reception by gaming media and sports fans alike, with a recent New York Times review stating, “at its heart [MLB® 09 THE Show] is the most organic, rhythmically accurate and natural simulation of any team sport.” Approximately 1 in every 3 PS3 titles achieve Metacritic scores of 80 or higher, which affirms PlayStation’s proven track record in delivering rich and relevant entertainment content. SCEA is staged for yet another breakout fiscal year with a broad range of highly anticipated PS3 exclusives, including inFamous, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves™, MAG™, Heavy Rain, God of War® III, and Rachet & Clank® Future: A Crack in Time.
SCEA is also seeing positive internal sales momentum for PlayStation®2 (PS2) hardware sales for April and as the most played game console last year, the PS2 system continues to serve as a great choice for family entertainment, with its new $99.99 price point and ability to play back DVDs and CDs. Offering an unmatched library of nearly 1,900 games in North America, PS2 owners will see new additions such as MLB® 09 THE Show™ and MotorStorm®: Arctic Edge as well as major franchise titles from SCEA’s publishing partners, including Ghostbusters: The Video Game and Guitar Hero Metallica come to the platform this fiscal year.
Portable entertainment continues to gain tremendous momentum across the industry and the PSP® system is poised for its most exciting and diverse line up yet. SCEA has planned an unprecedented line up of games and content from publishing partners including Square Enix, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and popular first party franchises to hit the PSP platform, such as LittleBigPlanet and MotorStorm. Also, to commemorate the debut of the Rock Band franchise on the PSP platform later this year, SCEA will be releasing a limited edition Rock Band branded entertainment pack at the launch of Rock Band™ Unplugged. In addition to a stellar line up this fiscal year, PSP users will have new freedom in how they access their on-the-go content, with the test case digital-only distribution of Patapon 2 release on May 5.
PlayStation Network continues to expand its service to over 55 countries around the globe connecting more than 20 million registered users to each other and to a variety of digital entertainment options, including the revolutionary PlayStation Home service which accounts for more than 5 million users worldwide. PlayStation Network’s game library includes more than 180 downloadable games with extensive range of games from Ragdoll Kung Fu and Flower to growing selections from publishing partners, such as Wheel of Fortune and Noby Noby Boy. With the addition of NBC Universal content to PlayStation Network’s video delivery service, consumers today have access to more than 1,700 movies and 5,700 television episodes from every major motion picture studio, including new movie releases such as Wanted and Role Models. The top ranked downloaded game in March was Flower and the top downloaded movie was Twilight.
PlayStation is synonymous with superior entertainment and SCEA is on pace to deliver on that promise once again.
9 Responses to “2009 a Platinum Year for PlayStation”
I enjoyed reading this, good to see Sony doing so well and 2009 should be a great year for the PS3.
And it only gets better from here….
Nice write up, Rich.
@The Hater
Sony Computer Entertainment has a limited budget. Last fiscal year, they only had an operating profit of about $113 million. They can’t waste money on gaudy commercials, especially with Sony Corp. depending on SCE to pull them forward. You already saw the number of divisions within Sony that got consolidated and absorbed into Sony Computer Entertainment a few months back.
For now, they need to survive. So long as PS3s keep selling at a steady rate, profits will increase. Selling over a million units is a good figure, and already covers production costs for Killzone 2. Expect to see the game hit multi-million status soon. Most people haven’t played the original game, so it has a lot to prove. Word of mouth should do the trick since it’s such a great title.
The commercials (or lack of) that you see on Television really depends on your area. Hey, I wish they had more marketing as well, but there’s financial limitations at the moment.
In a couple of years, we’ll all see Killzone 2 as a Greatest Hits game. You have to remember, KZ2 came out to a lot of hype. That hype was well-deserved, but there are probably a lot of people who don’t have enough money to make bets against hype like that.
The publicity is important, but we can make a diferrence. Just told everyone how god KZ2 is.
After the hugely disappointing Killzone 2 sales, yes hugely disappointing, it is more clear than every that PS3 simply will not make any significant moves without a price cut. Analysts were predicting PS3 sales for March nearing 400,000. Instead, it was only around 200k, with one of the most hyped games in history selling only a million. That’s not going to do it. I understand they can’t drop the price until they can afford it, but at some point, it WILL be too late to make a difference. I just hope it happens before then.
IMO Killzone 2 shouldn’t be on their list of platinum titles, the game was weak and had horrible controls/medicore online.
The platinum club should only have 3 members. FF, GOW, Uncharted 2.
Sounds like a pretty Solid list for every console, but im not so psyched about rock band PSP, without any type of peripheral the game just seems really boring, Id rather play Parappa, or beats. And Sneeches we all know about your life long mission to bring Killzone 2 down in every opportunity possible, even in posts where its not even mentioned, I understand u didnt like the game, but it didnt kill anyone, and a million other people (apparently) may have other opinions, yours is not the only one. Besides, if we’re going to go by your thoughts on what deserves a platinum club spot then how do u know FF GOW and Uncharted 2 are even worthy, u havent played em.
@ Sneeches
you sound like someone that doesnt like change..my advice………… stay with COD