Sony is still riding high on the PlayStation 4's success. In March we heard that more than 7 million PlayStation 4 consoles had been sold, but today at Gamescom Sony announced that the number has since gone far higher -- past 10 million in fact.
PlayStation Europe boss Jim Ryan announced the news at the press conference, and emphasized that the number is more than 10 million PlayStation 4's sold to consumers, not units shipped to retailers and sitting on store shelves. In May Microsoft announced more than 5 million Xbox One consoles had been shipped to retailers, leaving the current sales numbers unclear. The fact that the PS4 continues to sell relatively strongly in a summer nearly devoid of new game releases should be a good sign for even stronger sales this holiday.
It's an impressive benchmark in what has so far been a huge success story for Sony and PS4 fresh out of the gate. Sony has continued to one-up Microsoft's Xbox One month after month in sales, as the PS4 initially cost $100 less than the Xbox One. Even the announcement in June that Xbox One would no longer require Kinect and the introduction of a $100 cheaper, Kinect-less Xbox One wasn't enough to turn the tide in Microsoft's favor. Though the company announced that Xbox One sales more than doubled in the month of June, more PlayStation 4's were still sold, marking the sixth month in a row Sony had come out on top.
Microsoft, in its most recent earnings report, stated that it had sold 1.1 million Xbox consoles to retailers worldwide in the past three months, a number that lumps Xbox One and Xbox 360 sales together and doesn't include how many actual consumers purchased an Xbox console. Based on these numbers, Microsoft only sold 100,000 more Xbox consoles this year compared to the same time last year, despite last year not including the launch of the Xbox One.
Expect the competition to really heat up this holiday season, when the first wave of heavy-hitting next generation titles begin to hit the marketplace. Each company is planning on using exclusive console bundles to bring in customers: Sony with its white PS4 Destiny bundle and Microsoft with its white Xbox One Sunset Overdrive bundle.
Microsoft also has two other consoles bundles planned, one for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and a European exclusive FIFA bundle. All three Xbox One bundles do not include the Kinect, which seems to point towards Microsoft all but abandoning the camera peripheral that it once claimed was an essential part of the Xbox One experience.
