Japan Shipments of PS3 Have Ended
After 11 years on the market and over 80 million consoles sold worldwide Sony has announced that shipments of the PlayStation 3 have come to an end in Japan. In a recent announcement from the Japanese PlayStation Website, the last remaining PS3 model will cease to be shipped.
The original post on the Japanese PlayStation website was translated by Gematsu and discusses the last PS3 model currently available in Japan: the 500 GB console. This end to shipments of the PS3 in Japan marks a significant finale to the popular run of the console in Sony’s home country since it’s release in 2006.
While this does mark the end of sales in Japan, there is no word on when or if PS3 shipments will end in the US, Canada or the other big gaming markets. It is interesting however to see this announcement as Scott Rohde, PlayStation software product development head, stated in 2014 that people were still buying the PlayStation 3, even after the launch of the PlayStation 4! He said then that Sony would continue to support the older generation console “as long as there is a good business there for us.” As the PS3 is not selling how it used to, and is now negatively affecting Sony’s bottom line, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that shipments have come to an end in Japan.
Last month Sony announced that PS4 shipments had reached 60 million units already and the company is projecting to ship another 18 million during this fiscal year! Sony is projecting to ship another 18 million units during the current fiscal year, which is down year-over-year. On top of this success analysts are saying that a new PlayStation console is coming next year! Hopefully we’ll here more about this at E3 this year.
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