Sony have revealed that for every five PlayStation 4’s sold, one of them is a PlayStation 4 Pro, with Sony global sales chief Jim Ryan stating this is “way ahead of our expectations.” He also admits that they have not “done a very good job” in predicting demand as “the product is in desperately short supply.”
This also applies to PlayStation VR, sales of which have now surpassed one million units, but Sony are struggling to keep up with demand.
Jim also states that their are no plans for PlayStation 4 Pro exclusives, “There’s still a lot of juice to squeeze out of the PlayStation 4 platform, full stop. So ensuring PlayStation 4 games play on both consoles is our winning formula right now.”
As for the never ending battle between Xbox and PlayStation then Jim has some mind blowing figures. “It’s been pleasing that in North America, we’ve been 2-to-1 against Xbox,” says Ryan. “But in Europe, it’s really been fortress PlayStation by at least 3-to-1 in unit sales.”
You may have heard the rather ridiculous rumours of a PlayStation Vita 2 doing the rounds, none of which have made their way to TSA because they are ridiculous, and Jim confirms that Sony won’t be dabbling the in hand held market any time soon.
“To be honest, the Vita just didn’t reach critical mass in the U.S. or Western Europe,” he says. “I don’t know if it was that it was more technology people had to carry around, or more things to charge, or whether their phone or tablet were taking care of that. But once the content slowed in that pipeline, it became hard to keep the Vita as a going concern.”
Jim also confirmed something that many people had thought for a long time. “When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much.”
It was also stated that a ‘Pro’ version of the Dualshock 4 controller is “something we continue to look at,” so add that one to your E3 bingo cards.
Source: Time
TheShepanator
Shame about no new handheld, now could be the right time.
Also a bit strange you didn’t mention the actual ps4 sales figure (60 million)
Sammy
It is a shame that Sony’s not making a new handheld since I loved the PSP and Vita, but it’s also utterly ridiculous that the last figure sales for Vita are… > 4 million and then the console was regarded as a “dead platform”. While the PSP sold 80 million life-time.
It’s silly because the Vita was a way better handheld than the Switch is now, but I guess the public just wasn’t ready for this kind of a powerful, pocket device back then.
TheShepanator
I think sony just marketed it to the wrong people to be honest. The handheld market is mostly kids on long car journeys, and while there were a few vita games for that audience, sony just didn’t advertise to them (or rather their parents.)
The main audience they were advertising to don’t really care about handhelds anymore, they can play games on their phone.
camdaz
I’m quite surprised to read one in every five consoles sold is a Pro, that’s a lot more than I thought it would be. Well done Sony for getting that right. Now they’ve just got to make more of them to meet demand.
Stefan L
Still only amounts to about 2 million in total, after roughly 10 million were sold since the Pro’s launch. In the grand scheme of things, it’s still tiny, though that balance will obviously shift slowly but surely towards the Pro.
Sammy
Now they just need some solid software support so the platform isn’t DOA. So far, we didn’t receive much that is really worth of note. The fact that the CPU is only slightly overclocked compared to base PS4 is a real bottle-neck.
Yeah, you can say that HZD or some other 1st party titles look great on PS4 Pro, but the thing is – they already look amazing on a regular PS4 and the difference between the platforms is negligible. Unless you play the game side-by-side on both consoles at once, you can’t really see the differences, so I’m still holding out for some more substantial improvements. So far, Boost Mode proved to be the best feature as it was an actual, perceptible improvement to performance of older titles.
Foxhound_Solid
Awesome figures. Love my PS4Pro :-)
TrumpyMx
If only 1 in 5 consumers are prepared to spend a moderate amount on top for a PS4Pro, then it doesn’t bode well for Scorpio, with its high end pricetag. By then, PS4 Pro will be almost half the cost and delivering 4k output too…
Scorpio is essentially dead in the water before you even consider the dire Xbox games lineup…
Sammy
PS Pro really does have supply problems. I bought one on launch but I haven’t actually seen them around the stores that much since.