Sony Promises 380 PS3 Games By March

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) president Kazuo Hirai has claimed that more than 380 titles will be released for the PlayStation 3 in the current business year, ending March 31st 2008 – including 200 boxed games and 180 downloadable titles. Hirai made the comments to the Japanese Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun newspaper, as translated by news agency Reuters. He also indicated that Sony would work with publishers on marketing promotions, including events and in-store promotions – although this may only relate to the Japanese market. The PlayStation 3 currently has 60 games and 50 downloadable titles, with a deficiency in both the quantity and quality of new and exclusive releases being seen as the main reason, beyond the price, for the console’s currently slow sales across the world. It is unclear whether the figure of 380 titles is for entirely new games, or a total of all those released from the end of March 2007 to 2008. In either case, it will still represent a significant increase in new releases, already at a seasonal low over the summer. In addition, the figure of 180 PlayStation Network titles presumably includes a number of repurposed and emulated PSone games, of which a large number are currently Japanese-only.