Cloud nine

Sony has been bullish about a platform launch before – but with the PlayStation 3, that buoyancy felt phoned in. With its impending next generation console, however, there’s a swagger from its executives that seems believable – and Jack Tretton has furthered that in an interview on the eve of the PlayStation 4’s launch, pointing out that the company's pretty happy with how things are tracking.

“This is a marathon, not a sprint, but getting out to a nice start is a good thing to do,” the SCEA president told Business Week, responding to estimates suggesting that it will sell three million PS4s by the end of the year. “That hurdle has been cleared. We’re very, very confident that we’re in great shape.”

As previously reported, the manufacturer hopes to have sold five million units by the end of March, but we get the feeling that it may even surpass that target if this month’s North American and European launches go well. “We’re very comfortable with it,” beamed Tretton. “I’m excited about next week to be able to talk about what was sold as opposed to what we may sell.”

We suspect that the platform holder will announce initial PS4 sales numbers right around the launch of the Xbox One on 22nd November, presumably in an attempt to steal attention away from Microsoft’s machine. It’ll then have an opportunity to announce further figures later in the year, as the system is not set to deploy in Europe until 29th November. How many units do you think that the device will move this year? Make a prediction in the comments section below.

[source businessweek.com, via neogaf.com]