Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House set a target of five million Playsation 4 units sold by March 31st but they no longer have to worry about hitting that goal. As of February 8th Sony announced they have sold 5.3 million PlayStation 4 units worldwide. That's not units shipped and sitting on shelves, that's units in consumer's hands. Your move, Xbox One?
It's huge news for Sony. Just yesterday reports came in that claimed PS4 sales have surpassed 5 million units, and it seemed a little unreal. Earlier this year Sony announced that they had sold 4.2 million PS4s by the end of 2013, which meant that in January they would have had to sell over a million more, this after the holiday season and with stores still struggling to keep it in stock. It turns out that that was exactly the case.
Of course, things have slowed down a bit. Sony was averaging 700k units a week at the end of 2013 and now it's only about 183k a week.
While the Xbox One has had issues with numerous reports of games offering lower resolution on the platform (most recently with Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes), the imminent release of Titanfall after their wildly successful beta is sure to see them bounce back a bit. Whether it will be enough to meet the Playstation 4's moment remains to be seen, but it's a while before the PS4 has a comparable exclusive title- most likely not till June with inFamous: Second Son's release.
In any case, it's still way too early to call a lead in this race. This is an exciting time for the industry and everyone's knives will surely be out come E3, and definitely by this next holiday season, in which case the victor might truly be decided.
