Sony reveals sales of PlayStation 3 reach 30m in Europe and PAL regions

19 Dec 2012

Consumer electronics giant Sony has revealed that sales of PlayStation 3 games consoles in Europe and PAL territories surpassed 30m units this week.

The PlayStation 3 was launched in March 2007 and has grown to include the PlayStation Network, the PlayStation Plus content service, the PlayStation Move motion controller and the new Wonderbook peripheral.

A slimline version was launched in September this year and this was followed by a revamped PlayStation Store for PS3.

Sony is believed to be working on the successor to the popular console, the PlayStation 4. A new developer kit from Sony called Orbis is rumoured to be for the PlayStation 4, and specifications leaked confirm Sony is moving away from the Cell architecture developed with Toshiba and IBM to an AMD-based chip.

In recent weeks, Sony confirmed that globally across all regions the PlayStation 3 console has surpassed 70m devices sold. It also revealed that sales of the PlayStation Move motion controller surpassed 15m units.

“This is a major milestone for us and clearly shows just how popular the PlayStation brand and products are within Europe and the PAL territories,” said Jim Ryan, president and CEO of SCEE.

“We are really pleased with the success of the PS3 system over the last six years, and are committed to continuing our support of the platform with high quality products and titles that are of the calibre that PlayStation fans have come to expect.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com