Sony sells over 5.3 million PlayStation 4 units, crushing forecast numbers

Sony's resurgence to the top of the gaming industry continues to rise as over five million PlayStation 4 consoles have been sold worldwide, and that's before a release in Japan.


From The Verge:

Over 5.3 million PS4 systems have been sold through around the world as of February 8th, ahead of its release this Saturday in Sony's home territory of Japan. The company had previously forecast sales of 5 million units in the financial year ending March 2014.

That's an incredible increase from Sony's projected numbers. In essence, both Sony and Microsoft continuing down the opposite paths that began in the last console generation.

The PlayStation 3 had bad press before the launch after the announcement of the $600 retail price. Then, third party releases didn't match the quality of Xbox 360. It took many years before Sony bit the bullet and started selling their system for half that price.

As the quality of games improved with the eventual price drop, so did the install base.

Apparently, Microsoft didn't learn from Sony's mistakes over six years ago. Just because the Xbox 360 was a wild success doesn't mean that gamers will stick in that ecosystem.

While much harder to transfer this time around with friend lists and subscription services, the numbers are clearly trending in Sony's favor.

Never underestimate the power of the almighty dollar. Despite the 360's success in the eyes of the game industry, the Wii outsold everyone with its incredibly low $250 price point. Sony's move to launch the PS4 for $100 less than the Xbox One proves to be a winner.

Image credit: Flickr

Michael Pachter: PlayStation 4 will out-sell Xbox One by 8.7 million units by 2016

Game business analyst (or whatever cute name Jim Sterling loves to come up with) Michael Pachter believes that Sony's early success with the PlayStation 4 will continue on through 2016.



Pachter gives his figures for all three of the main consoles in a HardwarePal article.

This is how it goes: We expect Sony’s and Microsoft’s new consoles to thrive over the next three years, with cumulative worldwide sales of 37.7 million PS4 and 29 million Xbox One consoles by year-end 2016. We do not expect Nintendo’s Wii U to fare as well, with cumulative sales of under 20 million by 2016.

The analyst basically suggests that there isn't that much of a difference between the two consoles for most consumers to validate the extra $100 needed to purchase an XBO. For those that have done research, nearly all the games on PS4 run at a full 1080p resolution while XBO games are at 720p.

That difference is more notable on bigger televisions, mainly anything above 50 inches.

These numbers, of course, are if everything continues as is. They suggest that the PS4 will eventually drop to a $299.99 retail price by 2016, the XBO to drop to $349.99 by 2016, the new software retail price to stay where it's at, and that the Wii U continues to stay in development.

Currently, according to the latest numbers from VGChartz, the PS4 has exactly one million more units sold (3.4M-2.4M).

Predicting nearly a nine-million unit margin is pretty huge. We already expected Sony to get an early advantage with such a huge difference in opening retail price, but Pachter is expecting millions of Xbox 360 owners to cross-over to a company they may or may not trust.

Leaving a developed eco-system, especially for those that just play certain multiplayer games on their consoles, is incredibly hard unless Sony can show that it's easy to jump from the 360 and get things going on the PS4. That, and the bells and whistles of interactive television will be an interest to some.

Image credit: Flickr