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http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/10/...party-support/

Sony Explains Five Million PS4 Sales Forecast: Boasts “Much, Much Higher” Preorders, Strong Third Party Support

by Giuseppe Nelva Oct 31st 2013 4:35PM 12 @abriael
PS4News


This Morning Sony held a conference call for investors and analysts, responding to questions about the past financial quarter and the future of the company. During the session for foreign investors, Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato gave an explanation of the elements behind the confidence of the company in the forecast that sees five million PS4 units shipped by March the 31st.

The five million units forecast is on a selling basis. I cannot give you… in terms of numbers… the confidence level we have at the moment, but when we listen to consumers, when we listen to retail partners and third parties, one measure of confidence is on the preorders we have received from the consumers. I can’t give a number, but compared to past platforms, the preorders we have received for this new platform are much, much higher.
People have not just listed their names, but in most cases put down a certain amount of money for these preorders, so that is one piece of information that we have in mind when we look towards the launch of this platform.
The second would be that we have strong support from third parties. Some times when we launch a new platform the software catalog is not sufficient. After the launch some times you don’t have good titles. But this year on a competitive basis I think we have a much stronger line-up of software coming. Those are the things that we’re looking at.

It’s worth mentioning that when he talks about “selling basis” Kato-san means “sales” in financial terms, which equates to shipments, not to sales to customers (once Sony has sold the console to retailers, it’s sold for what they’re concerned, whether it finds a loving home or stays on the shelves makes no difference in financial terms).