Electronic Arts’ Blake Jorgensen has said that he expects sales of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to hit around 50 million units sold worldwide by the end of 2015.
Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Conference, Jorgensen noted that both systems are tracking well ahead of expectations, with the figures surely to rise as the industry enters the lucrative holiday season. After all, there’s bound to be a lot of PS4 and Xbox One consoles given out as Christmas presents.
“Clearly, consoles have sold faster than everyone expected,” he said. “We’re ahead of the previous cycle in terms of the pace. We’re on track to see, industry-wide, about 50-51 million units by calendar year end. And typically, most of the consoles are sold in the last quarter of the year because a lot of it is around gift-giving.”
As previously reported, Jorgensen also praised both consoles’ raw technical prowess, and said that developers are only just starting to come to terms with harnessing that power as both systems celebrate their two-year anniversary. Unlike Sony however, Microsoft has not divulged exact sales figures for its flagship console; last we heard, the system had shipped 10 million units worldwide, though it did manage to outsell the PS4 in the U.S. last month for the first time in a while.
PS4 on the other hand has sold-in 29.3 million units globally since its launch in November 2013, giving it a clear advantage over its leading rival. In the U.K., it has been confirmed that sales of Sony’s latest home console are tracking ahead of the PlayStation 2, which is the best-selling home platform of all time with 155 million units sold since 2000. One analyst predicts that PS4 will fall slightly short of this milestone achievement, although still puts the console significantly ahead of its predecessor.