SONY POSTPONES PS2 E-COMMERCE
October 25, 2000

Sony announced today the postponement of the e-commerce component of its website, to ensure that retailers have the first opportunity to secure and distribute the PlayStation2 tomorrow. The company will not begin its online PS2 sales initiatives until it "ships a substantial amount of PlayStation 2 computer entertainment systems into the market."

With unprecedented demand for the system, Sony intends to to provide as much PlayStation 2 hardware as possible to more than 20,000 storefronts, which is estimated to generate more than $500 million in incremental retail sales for the category during the launch timeframe.

At launch, Sony plans to ship 500,000 PS2's, followed by shipments of approximately 100,000 units per week through the holiday season, which means 1.3 million units will be shipped just two months following the launch, a milestone for the industry.

"By choosing to postpone the PlayStation.com e-commerce launch, we are demonstrating that our priority is to support our retail partners and, ultimately, consumers who rely upon their local storefronts to purchase PlayStation products," said Jack Tretton, senior vice president, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "With the upcoming launch of the revolutionary PlayStation 2, we look forward to continuing the momentum for the category at retail by being able to offer a complete end-to-end solution to the consumer with PS one and PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system."

As you may recall, more than 1/3 of the PS2's in the Japanese launch were sold by Sony online, so this move by the company should free up a good amount of systems for retailers. Regardless, there will still be significant shortages quite some time.