Sony, Nintendo Expect Bumper Year in Europe

Sony Corp. and its Japanese video games peer Nintendo Co. reiterated their expectations for a bumper year in the European market, hinting that business may be even better than forecast.

Sony Computer Entertainment said it expected to ship 5.8 million PlayStation 2 consoles in the second half of 2002 in regions of Europe, Australia and the Middle East that use the PAL-TV format. The shipments will bring the total installed base to 14 million units in the region.

At a parallel event in London, Nintendo said it had sold 1 million of its GameCube consoles to consumers in Europe in the 11 weeks since the European launch in early May.

The company added that it expects to have shipped 3 million GameCubes to resellers in Europe by the end of the year.

Sony, which launched its Play- Station 2 one year before Nintendo introduced its similarly featured GameCube, is market leader with 33 million units sold around the world.

Nintendo gave a global outlook that was a notch up from its last forecast in May. It expects to have sold 16 million GameCubes by the end of its fiscal year in March 2003. Seven million of those will have been sold in the United States, 5 million in Japan and 4 million in Europe, a spokeswoman said.

Nintendo had said in May that its target was to sell 12 million GameCubes in the current financial year on top of the 3.8 million sold the year before.