This figure is the one indicated on one of the copies of the console, exhibited on the floor which houses the brand's console museum. It is also mentioned that the production of the console took place from October 2006 to June 2016, even though the manufacturer had only announced the end of said production to the public in 2017. This figure of 88.1 million is logically higher than that of 87.4 million, mentioned on the Sony Interactive Entertainment website. The latter corresponds to the number of copies distributed worldwide and ends on March 31, 2017. The last figure officially communicated by Microsoft for its Xbox 360 reported 84 million consoles in June 2014, but the manufacturer has not announced production ended in April 2016, so its exact final number is still unknown.
For better or worse, the PS3 retains a special place in the PlayStation ecosystem. The only home console of the brand not to have reached 100 million sales, it suffered at its launch from the excesses of its emblematic patriarch, Ken Kutaragi, whose bad calculations (a complex CELL processor, a Blu-ray player outside prices) precipitated his ouster and pushed the subsidiary's finances into the red for several years. From 2009, with strong titles like Killzone 2, Uncharted 2 and the release in September of a “slim” revision that was finally affordable (300 euros compared to 600 at launch), the situation of the console will greatly improve. Its architecture makes it a machine whose catalog cannot be emulated on current consoles, unlike the PS1 and PS2 games which are reborn every month as part of PlayStation Plus Premium. You must therefore go through the streaming of this same subscription to be able to relaunch titles like Heavenly Sword, inFamous, MotorStorm Apocalypse, Puppeteer, Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time, Resistance 3 or even Sly Cooper: Thieves Through Time.
This is the second time that the total production figure for a PlayStation console has been revealed more or less secretly. Last year, it was the former director of PlayStation, Shawn Layden, who celebrated the anniversary of the PSP by unveiling a copy with the same final production figure (82,523,607), a figure that is clearly higher than the latest distribution figure communicated by the manufacturer (76.4 million as of March 31, 2012). In the same vein, former CEO Jim Ryan affirmed shortly before retiring that the final sales figure of the PlayStation 2 is closer to 160 million than to the 155 million stopped on March 31, 2012, the moment from which the manufacturer had stopped detailing the quantities distributed each quarter.
- Also read | Shawn Layden Reveals Final PSP Production Figure
- Also read | Jim Ryan: “We sold 160 million PS2s”
