Sony Says It May Not Meet PS3 Shipment Goals on Production Snag

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., which slashed its profit forecast yesterday, said it may not reach this year's shipment target for the PlayStation 3 game console because of a parts shortage in the Blu-ray high-definition disc drive.

Sony plans to ship two million PlayStation 3 players this year to the U.S. and Japan, and six million worldwide by March. The Tokyo-based company said yesterday annual profit would fall 39 percent to its lowest in five years on price cuts of the console in Japan and a recall of 9.6 million computer batteries.

``The honest answer is it's more of a target'' for PlayStation 3 shipments, Jack Tretton, co-chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said yesterday in an interview. ``Clearly we've had production issues.''

A shortage of the PlayStation 3 would give Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Co. a bigger head start in the $20 billion console market when they sell their players next month in time for the year's biggest sales season. Sony cut the price of the PS3 in Japan after consumers complained it was too expensive compared with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii.

``It would be a big hill to climb with a console that costs twice as much,'' said John Broady, an analyst for GameSpot.com, a unit of Cnet Networks Entertainment that tracks video-game sales. ``A lot of this is driven by mothers. When they look at their budget, I think the Wii is going to be very attractive.''

Shares of Sony fell 0.2 percent to 4,780 yen as of 12:35 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, against a 0.4 percent advance in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.

Laser Parts

The PlayStation 3 will retail for at least $500, while a basic Xbox 360 model from Microsoft sells for $300. Nintendo is releasing its Wii console at $250.

Sony said in September that it would cut the 2006 rollout for the PlayStation 3 from four million to two million units and delayed the console's European introduction four months. The company said at the time it still expected to reach its original target of six million units by March.

The company said at the time it couldn't make enough blue diode lasers, the key components of the Blu-ray player. A Blu-ray disc can store at least five times more than the 4.7 gigabyte standard DVD, enabling high-definition game graphics and movies.

Earnings Outlook

Net income for the year ending March 31 will drop 35 percent to 80 billion yen ($675 million) from a year earlier, Sony said. Losses at the game division will be wider than Sony expected because of the PlayStation 3 price cut and slower sales of the PlayStation Portable. About 60 billion yen of operating profit will be erased from the division, the company said.

Tretton spoke in an interview at Sony's ``Gamers Day,'' an event in San Francisco designed to showcase PlayStation 3's capabilities. Sony will release more than 20 game titles for the console during the holiday season. Titles include ``Resistance: Fall of Man'' and ``Genji: Days of the Blade.''

Publishers including Electronic Arts Inc. and Activision Inc., the two largest makers of video games, are developing titles for the PlayStation 3.

Microsoft has shipped 5 million Xbox 360 consoles since it was introduced in November 2005 and expects to sell 10 million by the end of the year, said spokeswoman Molly O'Donnell. Nintendo plans to sell 4 million units of the Wii by year's end, the company said in September.

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