Sony announces sale of 6 million PlayStation 4 consoles

Sony said today that it has sold 6 million PlayStation 4 units as of March 2, well ahead of its target for the fiscal year which wraps up at the end of this month, Reuters reported.

Sony, which launched the PS4 in many countries, has a clear advantage over the Xbox One, which launched in limited capacity a week after the PS4 launch. The Xbox One, which is yet to hit countries such as India , will be available in stages over the course of the year. 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. The company then rolled it out across other Asian countries, including in India on January 6 , followed by start of sales in Sony’s home country Japan on February 22.

With over 6 million consoles sold, the company has easily breached the target set for itself. However, the big criticism for the PS4 has been the lack of titles meant specifically for the new-gen console. Xbox One has had a better start when it comes to this, but PS4 is slowly catching up and the huge early success is sure to get the attention of publishers and developers.

It cannot be stressed enough how important the console is to Sony’s fate as an electronics company . The early success can be said to be a silver lining for the beleaguered company. The Japanese giant, which is headed towards a loss-making fiscal year, exited the PC market by selling the Vaio business to Japan Industrial Partners in February . It has also made the Bravia TV business into a subsidiary company and intends to cut its global workforce by about 5,000 people by the end of March next year. That’s on top of the 10,000 layoffs it announced last year.