GC: Sony press conference wrap-up

At Sonyâs Games Convention press conference David Reeves, head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, revealed the latest sales information for its consoles, with the PlayStation 3âs figures close to matching the early sales of the PlayStation 2.

According to Reeves, TV-based console sales have risen 65 per cent since 1997 with software sales up 200 per cent. In the same time frame, handheld numbers rose by 316 per cent, with accompanying software jumping 900 per cent.

Sony is now predicting that there will be 140 million PlayStation consoles in PAL territories by 2010.

Furthermore, 1.3 million PS3s* have now been sold in Europe, with Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm the best-selling first party titles, shifting 531,000 and 469,000 units respectively.

The recently-released PS3 Starter Pack boosted sales by 61 per cent in the first three weeks after launch, and the company expects to have 65 titles in shops before Christmas.

Reeves also released the latest numbers for the PlayStation Network in Europe — over 645,000 users have now registered for the service, with Tekken: Dark Resurrection notching up 103,000 of a total of 7.6 million downloads of all varieties.

He went on to detail a number of other announcements, such as the new Go! range for the PSP, and to confirm earlier rumours regarding the PS3 video recording functionality.

Hideo Kojima and Kazunori Yamauchi were guests at the event, as was FIFA representative Chuck Glazer, who announced that the FIFA Interactive World Cup would be using the PS3 platform.

The conference finished with German rock band Die Toten Hosen crooning along to one of their tracks in the forthcoming SingStar title, in German.

*-Reeves actually stated that 13 million PS3s have been sold. However, this figure doesn't tally with other sales data or with additional information provided elsewhere in the press conference, so we believe this figure is in error.