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Sony’s global game development chief Shawn Layden has confirmed the company’s sold more than one million PlayStation VR units worldwide, according to a new interview with Time.
The virtual reality headset, which launched globally last November, reached 90,000 units in February, but limited supply has constrained sales ever since Day One – a fact Layden confirms by saying the device has been consistently sold out ever since launch.
"We don’t see it as a fad, it’s a brand new medium, not only for gaming entertainment, but non-gaming entertainment," Layden told Time.
He also revealed that one in five new PlayStation 4s being sold now is a PlayStation 4 Pro, something that’s "way ahead of our expectations," says Sony’s global sales boss Jim Ryan.
"As with PSVR, and I suppose in forecasting these things we haven’t done a very good job, the product is in desperately short supply," Ryan continues. "So that’s one-in-five under severe constraint."
Europe, in particular, has been a hugely successful market for the PS4."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."
Layden also said the Japanese games industry has been making a welcome comeback in recent years, and that fans can expect some big Japanese-made titles to be unveiled next week at E3:
"I think a lot of Japanese developers lost their way chasing the mobile games yen, if you will, but they’re coming back to console in a major way. And speaking of, we’ll have some big announcements at E3 in that precise vein."
A Vita successor to rival the Nintendo Switch, however, is far less likely. "To be honest, the Vita just didn’t reach critical mass in the U.S. or Western Europe," he said. "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."
