Sony plans to release 380 PS3 games this year @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on June 21, 2007

News: Quite an ambitious goal indeed.

According to Reuters, Sony CEO Howard Stringer spoke quite a bit about the future of the PlayStation 3 at Sony's annual shareholder's meeting.

According to Stringer, the 380 games will be released on the PS3 during this fiscal year (April 1, 2007 - March 30, 2008). He breaks it down as 200 "packaged games" (games on Blu-ray) and 180 "launched over the Internet" (PlayStation Network titles).

While 380 is an impressive number, the real question is the math used to come to it. Since April 1, there have been 17 games released on the PSN (including PS1 re-releases) and only a dozen "packaged games" in North America. Less than 50 games currently have a tentative release date for the rest of 2007.

It appears Sony is using the same math they use to come up with the 7,000 games they say is available for the original PlayStation: count the number of games released in each region as a separate "game" and add up all the numbers. That's not exactly honest.

So while there will be plenty of new PS3 games available in the next nine months, I wouldn't hold your breath for Sony to come through with this promise.

Update: Sony PR man Dave Karraker has contacted Next-Gen.biz and clarified that the North American market will receive 105 games on Blu-ray and around 40 downloadable titles in 2007. Using these numbers for each region adds up to the magic 380. Mystery solved.

source: Reuters