Sony’s PlayStation 4 went on sale in North America in time for the holiday season three months ago, and in Western Europe on November 29 last year — and has yet to hit shelves in the company’s home market of Japan — but sales of the gaming console are still going strong.
Sony has surpassed it own full-year target of five million units by the end of March, reporting today (via Reuters) that it had sold 5.3 million units as of February 8.
This comes days after Sony tweeted that the PS4 had been the best selling console in the U.S. in January — beating out Microsoft’s Xbox One, which launched on November 22, althoughRedmond claimed the top spot for number of games sold.
Judging by today’s data, Sony’s PS4 is maintaining that early lead, with one core console country left to come in its current rollout schedule.
The PlayStation 4 is due to go on sale in Japan on February 22, kicking off with a live-streamed launch event at the Sony building in Tokyo. Microsoft has yet to nail down a firm launch date for the Xbox One in Japan, beyond saying it will land there sometime in 2014.
Last month, rival Japanese gaming giant Nintendo reported a sales target miss for its controller/console combo, the Wii U – and slashed sales expectations by almost 70% — as it struggles to compete with, on the one hand, home console heavyweights like the PS4 and, at the other end of the market, smartphones being used for casual gaming.
Source: TechCrunch
