PS3 sales reach 33.5m

The long-term aim of surpassing Xbox 360 to cement second place in hardware race looks one step closer for Sony this morning with news that PS3 unit sales have now hit 33.5m worldwide.

The most recent figures from Microsoft say that Xbox 360 has sold 39m units globally. It was only yesterday that SCEA’s Peter Dille boldly claimed that PS3 is on track to overtake its opponent.

Sony shifted 6.5m PS3 consoles in its last fiscal quarter, putting it on track to achieve its third year of annual hardware sales climbs for the machine.

There were also annual gains in PS3 software sales, with Sony’s Q3 seeing 47.6m software units sold around the world. In the same period last year it shifted 40.8m

Less positive were software sales on PSP and PS2, however. The portable console saw software year-on-year software sales fall by 500k units to 15m, while PS2’s fell to 11.2m – down from 29.7m.