Tag Archives: Michael Ephraim

Sony Australia has announced a new addition to its Australian line up of digital TV – SBS On Demand.

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NPD Group Australia has revealed Sony took the greatest slice of market share at Australian retail over 2011.

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Sony Computer Entertainment Australia has gleefully announced a massive sales spike in the wake of PlayStation 3 price cuts.

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PSP2 will be a download-only device similar to PSP go, if comments by Sony Computer Entertainment Australia are anything to go by.

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Sony Australia boss Michael Ephraim has revealed that Apple has now become a lot more “arrogant”.

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Sony Australia’s announced that its sold over 850,000 PS3 units in the region.

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According to The Age, PSPgo managed to move only 1,000 units in Australia on its launch week.

Michael Ephraim, managing director of Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, told the publication that first week sales were “not under 1000 but it’s slightly over 1000″ units.

“Clearly we haven’t done massive numbers but it’s not something that we’re concerned about … because there are still some issues that we need to work through,” added Ephraim.

More on GI.

Australia – the Mad Max hinterland of the global gaming hardware war – is PlayStation 3-crazy according to Sony, which today claimed PS3 has outsold Xbox 360 by 45 percent in the first quarter this year.

“I can tell you in the first quarter of 2008 we have outsold Xbox 360 by around 45 percent,” SCE Australia head Michael Ephraim told PALGN.

“That is not including the Bravia deal, which moved through around 30,000 units, so if you add the Bravia deal to our global sales we have now, in the first quarter of 2008 we have outsold the Xbox 360 by 2:1.”

The site’s promising a full interview with Ephraim tomorrow, so expect more Australian figure madness later this week.

This is going to get worse before it gets better, right? According to this IGN report, Sony Australia’s claiming the PS3 version of GTA IV’s outsold the 360 SKU so far, basing its argument on EB bundle sales.

“You might have seen the local Microsoft press release that came out last week,” said Sony Computer Entertainment Australia’s Managing Director, Michael Ephraim. “Well, I want to tell you that that is completely wrong, because what they failed to communicate or add was the 5000 GTA PS3 bundles that were sold in that week.

“When you add that in, the PS3 SKU outsold the 360 SKU definitely. We can’t comment on GTA numbers – just that one bundle and that PS3 outsold 360 at EB – and their figures aren’t factored into GfK statistics.”

He added: “The other thing I can tell you – and I feel comfortable telling you because I’ve asked them – EB, in the standalone data…across EB in Australia, the PS3 SKU outsold the Xbox 360 SKU too.”

More through the link.

Michael Ephraim, MD of SEE Australia, has said that discussions are going on internally at Sony to try to fix the huge delays between the US and PAL/Australian PSN content updates and that a solution should be on the way in the next six months.

“There are discussions and we have identified that [there is a problem with delays],” he said. “We have been very vocal about it and I think you will see an improvement over the next six months on this issue.”

That’s it, but at least it shows Sony’s looking to sort the whole issue out. The problem is hardly exclusive to PSN, either: the difference in content service between the American and European Xbox Lives is fairly dramatic. Cross everything this gets sorted sooner rather than later.