A few days ago, an executive over at video game giant EA had gone on record saying that the number of PS3 units shipped in 2006 could be almost half of what was originally predicted. In what seems to be further fuel for the rumor fire, an anonymous employee of the electronics retailer, Best Buy, has informed Neowin that management let it slip out that Best Buy, itself, would be getting approximately half of the original number of units promised by Sony and is banking on Wii, 360, PSP, and PS2 sales to carry gaming through the holidays. Taking Sony"s insistence of 1.2 million units by the end of 2006 and slicing that in half, we"re left with only 600,000 units for the US during the more important sales time of the year.
Unfortunately, for us, it"s hard to know what to believe, at the moment. On one side, we have an executive at EA and a trusted source from inside Best Buy telling us one thing and then, straight from the horse"s mouth, we hear completely contradictory information. Stay tuned while Neowin (and every other puzzled news site) tries to get to the truth once and for all.
Again, this information is not confirmed by Best Buy and is only word of mouth from someone inside the company. The next week or so will see the truth come out though, one way or the other I"m sure.
And thank you to our anonymous source, you know who you are.