The PlayStation 4 Is Absolutely Crushing The Xbox One
This makes February the third month in a row in which the Playstation 4 has dominated its competition from Microsoft and Nintendo.
In January, we noted that the PS4 had hit 4 million sales between its November 15 release date and December 28. That gave Sony a roughly 30% lead on Microsoft's Xbox One.
About a month later, Sony declared that it has nearly doubled the sales of its closest competitor but didn't release any numbers. Then, in mid-February, the company announced that it had sold 5.3 million consoles as of February 8.
Extremetech's Sebastion Anthony estimated that Sony sold approximately 500,000 more consoles than Microsoft in January, putting the count at 5.3 million PS4s sold to 3.6 million Xbox Ones.
That's even more impressive when you consider the fact that Nintendo's Wii U, which currently has more and better games than either the PS4 or Xbox One, has been out for a year longer than either console and has only sold 5.86 million units as of January.
The PlayStation 4 got a significant boost in February thanks to the console's launch in its home country of Japan on the 22nd. In its press release today, Sony noted that approximately 370,000 consoles were sold in Japan between its launch and March 2.
That compares incredibly well to the roughly 330,000 units that were sold in all other global markets between February 8 and March 2, but until we know how Sony's doing on the supply side, we don't know how that reflects on demand for the console in Japan.
In the United States, it can be incredibly difficult to get ahold of a PlayStation 4 due to limited supply - it's simply sold out everywhere. We won't know until a few months from now whether the same is true in Japan, but it wouldn't be a shock to see a drop in sales in coming months, as Japan as significantly shifted towards mobile gaming in recent years.
Meanwhile, it's likely that the Xbox One won't lag behind the PlayStation 4 much longer. In less than two weeks, Microsoft will be releasing a special edition of its latest console bundled with "Titanfall" - which is expected to be one of the biggest first-person shooters this year - for the console's regular price of $499.