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Sony dishes on PlayStation 3 sales, PSN growth

A Sony Computer Entertainment America exec reveals a few quick facts about the PS3, including the number of units that have sold worldwide since launch.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
Don Reisinger
2 min read
Sony's PlayStation 3 Sony

More than than 80 percent of all PlayStation 3s worldwide connect to the Internet, and Sony has tallied more than 70 million PlayStation Network accounts worldwide, a company exec revealed at the Game Developers Conference last night, according to video game blog Joystiq.

Pierre Gravereau, digital distribution manager at Sony Computer Entertainment America, reportedly told those in attendance at his panel discussion in San Francisco that Sony's PlayStation Store traffic is up 60 percent and its revenue has risen 70 percent, compared with the prior year.

In addition, Gravereau said--and several publications reported--that Sony has sold 41.6 million PlayStation 3 units worldwide.

However, Gravereau's hardware sales figures are off, a Sony spokesman confirmed to CNET this morning. A hardware-sales tally on Sony's corporate page, which includes the third quarter of the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, reveals that Sony has actually sold 47.9 million PlayStation 3 units worldwide. The 41.6 million unit sales Gravereau cited were tallied through the end of the company's fiscal second quarter.

In either case, Sony's console sales have been on the upswing. In its 2006 fiscal year, the first year the PlayStation 3 was made available, it sold 3.5 million units around the world in the two quarters it was on store shelves, according to its Web site. During its first full fiscal year in 2007, Sony sold 9.1 million PS3 units worldwide. That figure increased to 10.1 million and 13 million in fiscal years 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Sony Computer Entertainment chief Kaz Hirai said in December that he expects his company to sell 15 million PlayStation 3 units by the time its 2010 fiscal year closes at the end of this month.

Even so, the PlayStation 3 still has a long way to go to match its predecessor. Sony announced last month that it shipped its 150 millionth PlayStation 2 at the end of January.