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Sony sets PS3 sales objective

150m units worldwide

Sony plans to have sold 150m PlayStation 3 units worldwide by the end of the console’s lifecycle, it has been revealed.

Kaz Hirai, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, said that the firm eventually hopes to see sales of the PS3 outstrip the 140m PS2s it has sold in the nine years that console has been on sale.

The Sony executive admitted to the Financial Times that “it's not fun for me replicating the PS2 numbers”. However, he stressed that if Sony can’t exceed the PS2 sales figures then “why are we in this business?”

It has a long way to go Sony’s original PlayStation sold around 102m units during its lifetime. Between the PS3's Japanese debut in November 2006 and the end of March 2008 - some 16 months - Sony had only managed to shift around 12.8m PS3s worldwide.

That means it has to sell 137.2m PS3s in the next seven-and-three-quarter years to meet the 150m target. It has set itself a short-term goal of selling a further 10m consoles by the end of its current fiscal year on 31 March 2009.

Sony has already cut the console’s price several times, in a bid to boost sales. The firm announced at the recent E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles that from September it will sell an 80GB model in the US for $399 (£199/€250) - a price cut of around $150 (£75/€94).

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