Jim Ryan, Sony's global sales chief, is claiming that the PS4 has sold three times times more in Europe than the Xbox One. In an interview with Time, Ryan also mentions that over 1 million PSVR units have been sold since its launch in October 2016, and that 1 in every 5 PS4's sold lately is a PS4 Pro.
It's been pleasing that in North America, we've been two-to-one against Xbox. But in Europe, it's really been fortress PlayStation by at least three-to-one in unit sales.
Sony's global game development boss, Shawn Layden, mentions that although they managed to get away with launching three new hardware systems in 60 days, namely the PS4 Pro, the PlayStation VR and a slimmer PS4, they probably wouldn't do it again. Strange though, since Ryan claims that the sales caught them by surprise.
It is way ahead of our expectations. As with PSVR, and I suppose in forecasting these things we haven't done a very good job, the product is in desperately short supply. So that's one-in-five under severe constraint.
What's interesting to note about the games that influence PS4 sales, is that Layden claims one of the reasons is due to Japanese publishers coming back into the market. He names games like Resident Evil 7, Nioh, Nier: Automata, Persona 5 and Final Fantasy XV as examples.
That's super important for us. I think a lot of Japanese developers lost their way chasing the mobile games yen, if you will, but they're coming back to console in a major way. And speaking of, we'll have some big announcements at E3 in that precise vein.
Wow... sounds like Sony may just have some big surprises for us next week at E3. Leaves me wondering what Microsoft and Xbox have to offer as a counter.
