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Total shipments worldwide of Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 2 console hit 60 million at the weekend, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The mark was reached on Saturday, September 6, and came almost exactly 3 years and 6 months after the console first hit the streets of Japan at midnight on March 4, 2000. The PlayStation 2 console reached that mark around 1 year and 1 month quicker than its predecessor, the PlayStation.

While total shipments continue to rise, the pace at which units are leaving the company's factories is falling. It took four months for total shipments to rise from 40 million to 50 million but it took almost twice as long to ship the next 10 million units.

Earlier this year SCEI's parent, Sony, said it expects annual shipments in fiscal year 2003 to be 20 million units, against 22.5 million units last year.

New and Improved

This reduction in demand is forcing SCEI to come up with innovations on the basic console to push sales. Earlier this year the company gave the PlayStation 2 its first major overhaul since it went on sale and added read-support for DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW recordable and rewritable optical discs and progressive scan video output. The console was also made quieter and a power button was added to the remote control, making a trip from the couch to switch off the unit an option.

There have also been peripherals like a hard drive and broadband adapter, which together with the updated console are all intended to keep the PlayStation 2 looking fresh until the company's PlayStation 3 is ready. At present it looks like the new console won't hit the market until at least 2004--a three year investment plan for semiconductor lines that will manufacture its central processor was only formalized in April this year.

The largest PlayStation 2 market for SCEI has proved to be North America. Around 26.4 million units have been shipped to the U.S. and Canada. Europe has been the destination for around 19.4 million consoles while the vast majority of the remaining 14.2 million consoles have been shipped domestically in Japan. A small number of this final group have also gone to South Korea and other Asian countries where the console is sold, the company said.

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