Sony’s PlayStation says Hola! to Latin America

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Sony’s PlayStation business is officially jumping into Latin America.

The key word here is ‘officially.’ Latin Americans for years have been able to buy PlayStation consoles and games through specialty shops that import them from the U.S.

But Sony, which is trailing Microsoft and Nintendo in the console market, is hoping to tap more directly into the 500 million consumers south of the border. To do so, it plans to start piping PlayStation products into 13 Latin American countries through a distribution network run by its consumer electronics division, said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for the PlayStation business.

‘We’re looking to grow the business dramatically, not just for PlayStation 3, but also for PS2 and PSP,’ Sony’s hand-held game console, Dille said.

Not that we’re keeping score, but here are the estimated worldwide sales for each console as of Dec. 31, according to Edward Woo, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities:

• Wii (Nintendo): 45 million units
• Xbox 360 (Microsoft): 28 million units
• PlayStation 3 (Sony): 21 million units

Note: The Xbox 360 launched in November 2005, while the PS3 and the Wii launched a full year later.

-- Alex Pham