Sony is expecting to sell 13 million Playstation 3 gaming consoles in the financial year ahead according to the company's latest predictions for 2009.
In addition, the company reckons that 15 million Playstation Portable and 5 million PS2 consoles will be sold over the same period. if the predictions are true, then PS3 sales would be up by at least 30 percent while PS2 sales would crash significantly.
The Japanese giant is currently planning the road to recovery as it counts the costs of its restructuring, which stands at $1.1 billion. Overall Sony is still in the red, though not as deep as some expected and its gaming arm has been one of the few bright spots within the company.
Furthermore, rumours of a new Playstation 3 have appeared with photos of a slimmer PS3, dubbed the PS3 Slim, emerging. A new PS3 may be launched to slash down bill of material as well as improving the overall functioning of the console by using more mature components.
A new PS3 could also mean that Sony will bring down the price of its console to compete more effectively with Microsoft's Xbox 360. That said, it could well be one of the many marketing gimmicks of Chinese console fakers who came up with a novel idea.
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Sony has already denied having anything to do with the PS3 slim photos (ed: they wouldn't have behaved otherwise anyway). They have reiterated the fact that they haven't got any plans to redesign the PS3. Furthermore, the cheap looking plastic and slightly weird logo design are the trademarks of knock-off consoles which run 8-bit games.
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