Sony sells 5.3 million PlayStation 4 consoles, exceeds full-year target

Sony had said that it hoped to sell 5 million units by the end of March after releasing the PlayStation 4 on November 29 in the United States, Western Europe and Latin America and rolling it out across other Asian countries since then.

The console will go on sale in Japan on February 22, the last country currently scheduled to handle the device.

Microsoft said in January that it had sold more than 3 million of its Xbox One console by the end of December, of which 2 million were sold by the end of two weeks from its November 22 launch.

Sony announced it had crossed the 4 million sales mark for the PlayStation 4 at CES 2014 in January in Las Vegas. The exact sales figure of Sony PlayStation 4 gaming console is 4.2 million was on December 28, 2013. Interestingly, sales were exactly half, 2.1 million, at the end of the first two weeks from its November launch.

Contributing factors to the sales disparity, apart from brand preference and each ecosystem's attractiveness, include price and availability. The Microsoft Xbox One console is priced at $500, while the Sony PlayStation 4 is priced a $100 less, at $400. The availability of Sony PlayStation 4 is also wider than its rival, as the PS4 is currently available in 53 countries and territories, while Xbox One is currently available in 13 countries only.

Sony at CES 2014 also announced its game streaming service, PlayStation Now, which will enter public testing phase next month in US and will be launched in mid-2014. The service would let the gamers access and play various titles via the cloud on a number of devices including the PS3, PS4, smartphones, tablets and others which will expand over time.

Written with inputs from Reuters