Sony Aims to Sell Five Million PS4s by April

By Jane McEntegart
published

Sony talks PS4 sales goals at the Tokyo Game Show.

Sony's PS4 hasn't even gone on sale yet, but the company is already talking about how many consoles it hopes to sell in the first five months of availability. Speaking at the Tokyo Game Show, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Andrew House said the company is hoping to shift five million PS4 units by the end of the company's fiscal year (March 31). 

The PS4 will have to sell really well in those first few months, though, as it's only launching in the US and Canada on November 15. It'll hit the UK on November 29, but it's not going on sale in Japan until February of 2014. According to Reuters, Sony sold just 3.6 million PS3 consoles over the same period of time when the PS3 launched in November of 2006.

The PS4 packs an eight-core 64-bit x86 Jaguar CPU from AMD; a GPU with a unified array of 18 compute units, collectively capable of generating 1.84 teraflops of processing power; 8 GB of RAM; 802.11n WiFi; Bluetooth 2.1; USB 3.0; and an upgradeable 500 GB hard drive. It'll be priced at $399 when it does go on sale in November.

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Jane McEntegart
32 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wemakeourfuture
    What's amazing is how the smartphone revolution has made these console numbers look insignificant.

    Smartphones like the iPhone, are more expensive, have high profit margins and sell more on the opening day then consoles can sell in the first 4-6 months.

    Amazing to contrast the stock price of the companies who did well in the smartphone space versus old electronic companies that couldn't.

    Great for Sony on these numbers, but as in investor you still have to worry about being in Sony.
    Reply
  • Johnny_C13
    Well, considering the PS3's launch was surrounded in negativity (dat price!), and STILL managed to sell 3.6mil... 5mil is definitely manageable.
    Reply
  • soldier44
    Even though its outdated already when compared to my current gen PC, I will still pick one up for a few games that don't make it to PC. The Division comes to mind.
    Reply
  • nieur
    11580952 said:
    Even though its outdated already when compared to my current gen PC, I will still pick one up for a few games that don't make it to PC. The Division comes to mind.
    I think The Division is coming to PC
    Reply
  • Smokedatoke
    @Soldier44 Ubisoft already confirmed The Division for PC after the petition received 100k signatures. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F-Xu1S9wv0&feature=player_embedded
    Reply
  • getochkn
    Of course they say by March cause they probably won't have any supply till then. Sony is already worried about stock shortages.

    http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/sony-ps4-release-date-could-be-followed-by-four-months-of-stock-shortages
    Reply
  • yannigr
    I can see Sony announcing that it succeeded. It will be April the 1st...
    Reply
  • chumly
    Can it play games better than a $400 gaming computer? Probably not. It's also worth mentioning that a multitude of games are free for PC (in fact some of the most popular are). There won't be free games with the PS4. What am I missing? I think it's time to start phasing consoles out.
    Reply
  • getochkn
    11581319 said:
    Can it play games better than a $400 gaming computer? Probably not. It's also worth mentioning that a multitude of games are free for PC (in fact some of the most popular are). There won't be free games with the PS4. What am I missing? I think it's time to start phasing consoles out.

    Show me a $400 gaming computer build, with OS, 8 core, 8 GB ram and if you can even build one for that, I bet the consoles will play it better as of the date the console launches. In 6 years, a $400 PC might beat it, but then the console will be $200 then.
    Reply
  • Duckhunt
    please run natively at 1440p or higher.
    Reply