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The PS4 has gotten off to an amazing start sales wise, even as technical problems appears to have taken some of the gloss off the much anticipated launch.
Early reports indicate over a million consoles have left North American stores and made its way into people's homes in the first 24 hours alone. Had the PS4 launched worldwide on the same say, specifically in Europe and Japan, the sales number would have been even higher.
As a comparison, the previous most successful launch belongs to the Wii, which sold over a million units in the first few days. But this number is for worldwide sales, with "only" 600,000 units being bought in the US. To make a more direct comparison, Sony's previous console, the PS3, only sold 197,000 in the first month in the US due to its high launch price. The Xbox 360, in the first two weeks, counted 326,000 unit sales.
This potentially makes the PS4 the most successful console launch in history. The popularity of the console has not been unexpected, due to the record number of pre-orders in the preceding months.
Microsoft's next-gen effort, the Xbox One, launches this week with a $100 higher price tag in the US, but also with record pre-order numbers.
However, it wasn't all smooth sailing for Sony's PS4 launch, as users took to the Internet to report problems with the console. The faulty symptoms, now dubbed the "Blue light of death" problem, has been reported by many users who say their console will simply not boot up properly. Sony says the problem is not widespread, with only a 0.4% fail rate being reported for the PS4 at this current time, although the company has seen fit to provide a troubleshooting guide for the problem.
Early reports indicate over a million consoles have left North American stores and made its way into people's homes in the first 24 hours alone. Had the PS4 launched worldwide on the same say, specifically in Europe and Japan, the sales number would have been even higher.
As a comparison, the previous most successful launch belongs to the Wii, which sold over a million units in the first few days. But this number is for worldwide sales, with "only" 600,000 units being bought in the US. To make a more direct comparison, Sony's previous console, the PS3, only sold 197,000 in the first month in the US due to its high launch price. The Xbox 360, in the first two weeks, counted 326,000 unit sales.
This potentially makes the PS4 the most successful console launch in history. The popularity of the console has not been unexpected, due to the record number of pre-orders in the preceding months.
Microsoft's next-gen effort, the Xbox One, launches this week with a $100 higher price tag in the US, but also with record pre-order numbers.
However, it wasn't all smooth sailing for Sony's PS4 launch, as users took to the Internet to report problems with the console. The faulty symptoms, now dubbed the "Blue light of death" problem, has been reported by many users who say their console will simply not boot up properly. Sony says the problem is not widespread, with only a 0.4% fail rate being reported for the PS4 at this current time, although the company has seen fit to provide a troubleshooting guide for the problem.