Sony still planning to ship 2m PlayStation 3 units by 2007

Sony Corporation has said it is still on track to ship 2 million PS3 units by the end of the year, despite manufacturing problems and a failure to meet the day one shipment target for North America.

Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Sony president Ryoji Chubachi said, "It is true that it took us some time to bring the PS3 to mass production as blue laser availability worked as a bottleneck."

However, he went on to observe that sales of the console are meeting Sony's expectations, adding, "I don't think we need to revise our shipment targets... 2 million and 6 million are within our reach.''

Sony originally planned to ship two million consoles for the launch of PlayStation 3, with a further two million by the end of the year.

But in September that forecast was slashed, with Sony pledging 400,000 consoles for the US launch, 100,000 for day one in Japan and a global figure of 2 million by 2007 - with a further 4 million to follow by March next year.

According to research firm Enterbrain, around 88,400 systems made it to Japan in time, while NPD reported that less than 200,000 PS3s were on the shelves for the North American launch. SCEA's David Karraker later confirmed plans to ship 1 million consoles to the territory by the end of the year.

Chubachi went on to discuss Sony's recent executive reshuffle, stating that it was designed to signal a shift in focus towards software development and marketing for what's becoming an ever-more important part of Sony's business.

"With the PS3 launch, the entire game industry will expand. Its positioning within the Sony group is larger than ever," he said.

Chubachi also confirmed that Sony still plans to post a 5 per cent operating profit margin for the fiscal year beginning April 2007. He added that there is no change to the expected cost of a laptop battery recall, which stands at 51.2 billion Yen (330 million Euro).