Electronic Arts' European vice president/ general manager says he would like to see more PlayStation 3 units available for purchase when the system launches in March 2007.

Jens Uwe Intat believes that the launches have been a success from Sony's perspective, with the console selling out across North Amercia and Japan.

"We think they have obviously just put into the market a fairly small amount of machines and sold them all," said Intat. "And there also seems to be a decent media hype around the arrival of the PS3 so if I put myself into Sony's shoes I would think it went well.


"For the launch of new hardware, you will never be able to have as many [units] out there as people would like. It's better this way around than having new hardware sitting on shelves," he added.

When asked what he would like to see done differently he replied "We would obviously like to see more units. For sure, they will not have enough, but they can never have enough." Intat revealed they have been taking launch estimate numbers with a bit of skepticism and expecting the actual number of units to fall short of Sony execs' expectations.


"What we've really been seeing on the last hardware launches from all manufacturers is that there has always been deterioration in the amount of units on the run-up to launch, so it's nothing new," he said.


"The first day is not overly important for us, it's more important that the machine keeps on selling. That's why it's important that the hype and momentum keeps running because the installed base builds up over time, not in the first week."

Despite the current struggles EA is confident the launch will be on target for March 2007. "We have no reason to believe that it's not," said Intat. "We hope not just as a business but as consumers, that it does show up.

Despite not launching until that date Intat believes there is ample opportunity for publishers to take advantage of it.

"We hope the machine is going to arrive in Spring so consumers can start to enjoy it throughout the summer. With the hardware launching in March you build a decent installed base by September, and the you have a lot of word-of-mouth support for that machine when the Christmas season starts. By the end of next year there should be a very substantial installed base," Intat concluded.