SCE President Andrew House Explains 5 Million Sales Target for PS4, Mentions Gaikai Beta

Speaking at the pre-show press conference at the Tokyo Game Show, Sony Computer Entertainment President Andrew House discussed the sales target for their upcoming PlayStation 4. To the surprise of many, most likely Microsoft, the number was quite bit and Sony say they plan to ship as many as five million PS4 units before the end of the fiscal year. That’s 5 million consoles as their target sales in a four month period!

To put that into perspective, the most successful Sony console, the PlayStation 2 managed to pull in 1.41 million sales in the same period. Andrew took the time to discuss the high estimate with Japanese site Weekly ASCII Plus.

“At Gamescom in Europe in August we announced that at that time we had received over one million preorders. We achieved a very significant milestone. Afterwards the positive interest from the users continued to grow, so we set a large goal.”

“We made such a positive assessment because the hardware is 10 times as powerful as the PS3, but it still has an affordable price. Because of that, it has received a very positive reaction in the American market that is sensitive to pricing.”

“Another point is that PS4 is a full fledged multi-functional entertainment device out of the box. When the PS3 was originally released it allowed to enjoy the latest games and Blu-ray media, but it was very much limited to games. This time you can enjoy an outstanding and responsive UI and the variety of entertainment services of the PlayStation Network  and the like from the get go. Because of this we think that we can increase the market share greatly from an early stage.”

He also mentioned the GaiKai service which is set to launch in North America  at some point next year, saying their could even be a beta for the service before it goes public.

“Probably at the beginning we’ll operate it as a beta test. The actual titles and the methods of purchase are still being planned at this stage.”

It is true that Sony are onto a winner here, the console is a big leap up for the current gen, it’s competitively priced and it offers good value for money in terms of being a multimedia device too. Microsoft are going to do well this Christmas, no doubt it, but I think Sony are already gaining an initial lead that will be difficult to beat for some time.

Thank you DualShockers for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of eTeknix.