Sony must really be celebrating today as they announced that the Playstation 4 console has sold 6 million units in just under four months. With demand greater than supply all Sony needs is a flood of new gaming titles to help increase the pressure on Microsoft.
The approx 2.73 games purchased per console sold is great when you look at the sheer numbers but the average of just under 3 a system seems to indicate that many gamers are waiting for pending exclusives such as Infamous: Second Son and The Order 1886.
One concern about the number of gamers willing to pay for the Playstation + service after being spoiled with free online gaming on the Playstation 3 seems to be a non issue as thanks to the steady stream of free games each month, Sony has reported a big jump in subscriptions for their online service.
The last time I remember a console shortage of this magnitude was during the launch of the Nintendo Wii. Supplies were limited for the first 6-8 months of launch and I remember being on a waiting list for ours, and then finding one at a Target during a visit to Anaheim that had just happened to arrive with three others earlier that day. Needless to say we adopted the unit post haste and it was along for the ride on our vacation.
I remember some accusing Nintendo of hording the units in order to drive up demand as the rationale was that by making the system hard to find, it created demand for the unit which promoted people to order units and get on a waiting list.
One retailer told me that they had reports of warehouses full of the units waiting for shipments and that Nintendo was parceling out the units to retailers at a very slow pace so that at some time down the road, they could unleash the console on consumers to reach those who were not willing to play the waiting game via a reservation.
Some have accused Sony of doing the same thing as they believe that the company is holding back distribution of the unit in order to drive up demand and keep interest levels high while they wait for more exclusives to be finished.
One report has Sony selling roughly 1.7 million units a month but only being able to create 1.3-1.4 million units with manufacturing at full production. While some would say the need is to simply open more factories, the cost of doing so and the risk of over-production is a risk that may not be wise to take.
When Infamous: Second Son arrives, it will be very interesting to see if there is an increase in the availability of the console, especially with the Infamous Bundle being an option. One thing is for certain, with the launch of the biggest exclusive to date for the new system, Sony is sitting pretty and it will be interesting to see if the pending launch of TitanFall will affect the sales of the Xbox One in a positive way especially since the game will be available for Xbox 360 and PC gamers as well.
