Looks like Sony are planning on having a whole lot of stock for their upcoming PlayStation 4 Pro refresh of the PS4 in Europe- in spite of the console’s higher price and premium positioning in the market, it seems like they are anticipating significant demand for it in the market, at least through to this year’s end.
Speaking to UK trade magazine MCV about PS4 Pro stock levels, Playstation’s head of marketing and sales Jim Ryan said: “I’ve been told, just before we had this conversation, that pre-orders in the UK are looking pretty good. I can’t give you the numbers yet, but I’m pleasantly surprised.
“We will have a significant amount of stock at launch and then through Christmas. I can’t tell you whether that’s enough, but I remember we had a similar conversation about PlayStation VR, and I couldn’t answer that one either.”
On the whole, it sounds like more people are apparently interested in the new system than even Sony anticipated- which would explain Ryan’s surprise at the pre-order numbers. But who exactly is buying this new system, according to him?
“There will be those early adopters who simply want the latest and best from PlayStation, and it’s an opportunity to enjoy an enhanced gaming experience,” he said. “But equally, there are 50m people who’ll be acquiring 4K televisions in 2016. A significant amount of the PS4 Pro user-base will come from those people, and they may or may not be existing PS4 owners.”
That seems like a reasonable assessment to me. Now just how many of those people the PS4 Pro can ultimately appeal to remains to be seen- but for now, it seems like the answer to that will be, more people than Sony expected.
