PlayStation 4
Image: PlayStation

Sony was sheepish when it came to console sales last generation, lumping the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 together as part of the illusive "PlayStation Family". It's been a lot more forthcoming with the PlayStation 4, revealing both sell in and sell through figures with alarming regularity. But it seems that Microsoft doesn't want its console to be compared anymore.

This week's financial report from the Redmond firm saw it completely gloss over hardware shipments, with the organisation focusing on Xbox Live engagement instead. And speaking with Game Informer, it's said that it will not be revealing console sales unless something significant happens, opting to focus on active users instead.

It's a pretty remarkable reveal, because it indicates that the gap between the PS4 and the Xbox One is only growing. We actually agree with Microsoft that gamer engagement is a very important statistic – but hardware numbers clearly play a role in this, as a static install base will not bring many new subscribers into the ecosystem. Quite a crazy move, then.

Of course, we fully expect Sony to boast about its sales numbers next week – be it at Paris Games Week or as part of its planned financial report. The Japanese giant has, to its credit, been reporting both PlayStation Plus statistics and hardware shipments for a while now – but then, we guess that it has something to shout about. It rarely mentions the PlayStation Vita anymore, after all.

[source gameinformer.com]