Yesterday, we heard that Microsoft had managed to sell over three million of its Xbox One consoles. At the CES in Las Vegas today, Sony's own CEO Kaz Hirai revealed during a keynote that Sony has pulled an upset over Microsoft, announcing that has managed to sell over 4.2 million of its own PlayStation 4 since the console launched in November.
It would seem that while Black Friday and Christmas were very good to Microsoft and Nintendo, they were even better to Sony. As of the first of December, 2013, Sony had sold roughly 2.1 million PS4 consoles worldwide, over a million of which came from the first 24 hours. That would mean that during that one month alone, an additional 3 million or so consoles were sold. Not too shabby Sony.
The news solidifies Andrew House's initial December announcement on the European PS Blog. House wrote, "the PS4 delivered the best launch in PlayStation history," and that "demand remains incredibly strong and continues to overwhelm the supply worldwide."
That would be exciting enough for most PS4 fans, but during CES, House also revealed "PlayStation Now," a cloud-styled Gakai based service that will be bringing in some old-school PS2 and PS3 games to the PS4, and eventually, the PS Vita, smartphones, tablets, and certain brand TV sets. The news was also confirmed at the PlayStation Blog, which offered additional details:
- Play video games instantly across multiple devices, similar to the way you might stream TV, movies, and music.
- Stream full games to all of your compatible PlayStation devices including PS4, PS3, and PlayStation Vita as well as non-PlayStation devices, beginning with 2014 BRAVIA TV models and expanding to numerous other Internet-connected devices.
- Always play the most updated version of your game. With games hosted in the cloud, you can take your game with you - just log in with your Sony Entertainment Network account on a compatible device and your games and saved progress will be easily available.
The service goes into beta at the end of this month. Games will be offered on a pay-per-rental basis, or gamers can pay a monthly subscription fee. CVG reports that Beyond: Two Souls, God of War: Ascension, The Last of Us, and Puppeteer were playable using the service on PS Vita handhelds and Sony brand Bravia televisions.
Another cloud-based service, Move, will bring "live and VOD content," according to House, but further details were scarce. Under the hood, the PlayStation 4 boasts Supercharged PC architecture, X86 CPU, Enhanced PC GPU, and 8GB Unified Memory according to the official specs.
It supports the same PlayStation Plus service as the Vita and PlayStation 3. However, a Plus subscription is required for online multiplayer games, but not for additional media services like Netflix. Sony has also updated the Dual Shock controllers with a touch screen and improved shoulder triggers, and bundles the console with a headset.
Available titles for the system include Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, Resogun, and more. You can check out a complete list of launch titles' prices and install sizes here. It currently retails for $399.
