Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Sony's PlayStation 4 has sold 10M units worldwide

At Gamescom 2014, Sony reveals that its game console has sold 10 million units to consumers, signifying strong momentum continuing from its last sales update in April.

Sony on Tuesday said that its PlayStation 4 game console has sold more than 10 million units worldwide since its November, 2013 launch.

Jim Ryan, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president and CEO, announced the news onstage at Gamescom 2014, a video game trade fair held annually in Germany. The sales represent consoles sold through, which means purchased by consumers and not simply shipped to retailers.

The last time Sony shed light on PS4 sales figures was back in April when it revealed that lifetime sales of the console had reached 7 million units worldwide by March 31, 2014.

The figures are important because they represent a stark difference regarding Sony's strength in the console sector between the current generation and the last. Sony launched the PlayStation 3 in November 2006 with a hefty price tag of $600, only to slash it by $100 eight months later after selling barely more than half its projected 6 million-unit goal by March 2007.

The PS3 didn't hit the 10 million unit mark until the end of 2007, while it took Microsoft's Xbox 360 two years from its November 2005 launch to do so. With the PS4, Sony is illustrating the significant momentum of its console three months ahead of its one-year mark.

Microsoft has yet to reveal worldwide sales of its competing Xbox One console beyond revealing in early January of this year that the console had surpassed 3 million units sold through to customers by the end of 2013.

In April, Microsoft announced that it had shipped 5 million units to retailers, but have remained silent on sales figures even after cutting the price of the Xbox One from $499 to $399 by unbundling the Kinect motion camera in May. The lower-cost Xbox One did provide a sales boost in June, Microsoft said at the time, but the company did not disclose figures.

CNET has reached out to Microsoft for comment on updated Xbox One sales figures and will update this story when we hear back.

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