Limited editions of consoles often prove a real money-spinner. Not only does the vendor benefit, but the developer of the games to which the promotional bundles are usually attached often pocket a tidy sum, while the consumer also benefits from something quirky and unique. With the PS4 just about to launch in Japan, Sony has teamed up with Kojima Productions, the crew behind the also-upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, to deliver a special Fox Edition of the fourth PlayStation console, but unfortunately, it's not all that special.
The Xbox 360 may have won the last major console battle over the PlayStation 3, but even though the latest machines have only been around for a couple of months, Sony's latest PlayStation 4 is already establishing a degree of authority over its Redmond-made rival. By the close of the year, the PS4 had sold 1.2 million more units compared with the Xbox One, and even though the latter did sell more in December in the United States, sales figures for January by NPD Group indicate that Sony's new machine outsold its adversary by a ratio of almost 2-to-1, but there’s a small surprise lurking inside the numbers.
To win any war, sometimes you have to fight dirty, and while this might be a bit of a loaded term to describe Microsoft's latest marketing ploy, it's fair to say that the proverbial gloves are well and truly off. The Redmond company is trying hard to sell you its new and improved Xbox One, and if you happen to be in ownership of the PlayStation 3, then it is especially interested in your custom. So much so, in fact, that those trading in their PlayStation 3 at any US-based Microsoft Retail Store can save $100 off the purchase of the One, which arrives with the second-gen Kinect as standard.
Backward compatibility is a big deal in the gaming world, and when Sony announced its PS4 console, much of the talk was about the lack of any ability to play those back catalogues of games that everyone had spent the last few years accumulating. Sony has since sought to rectify that by announcing PlayStation Now, the game streaming service that will see PS3 games streamed over the Internet, but there is no local support being added to consoles.
Square Enix's Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition is all set to launch on January 28th for the PlayStation 4, and considering it's among the first of the major titles to hit the next-generation platform it's likely to generate a great deal of attention. In an attempt to show off the staggering differences between the PS4 and PS3, gaming site IGN has taken the opportunity to produce a side-by-side gameplay video that highlights just how far Lara Croft has come in her quest to make it onto Sony's powerful PlayStation 4 platform.
We're currently well into the opening lap of the renewed console battle between Sony and Microsoft, and with the latter having stepped out and claimed a haul of 3 million Xbox One units pushed before the turn of the new year, its Japanese adversary has well and truly trumped it with the revelation that 4.2 million units were sold as of December 28th.
The PlayStation 4 has just begun retailing in a further 16 additional countries atop the 32 that had already seen the release of the Sony machine, bringing the grand total of officially-selling nations up to 48. Although the inventory was rather scarce at launch, with the console selling out in many of its demographic hotspots, the Japanese company appears to be on top of the manufacturing process, or at least enough so to add so many new markets to the fold.
Sony and Microsoft have both attempted to continue the console roller-coaster by issuing separate statements about their hardware. The individual statements both take the opportunity to reflect on the sales and successes of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One during the first calendar month of availability. As you might expect, neither company is initially prepared to accept that they are playing catch-up with the other, and as a result have opted to put their own individual slant on November's sales figures with the intention of claiming an early victory.
Sony was keen to let the world know that the North American debut of the PlayStation 4 ended with record breaking results. With just north of one million units sold in the North American region in the first 24-hours alone, it was evident that Sony's next-gen console had captured the imagination of users. In the time that has followed, the PS4 has become available in a total of thirty-two different countries, with Sony officially announcing that more than 2.1 million consoles shipped during the month of November.
Sony's PlayStation 4 may have launched a week sooner than the Xbox One in the United States, but here in the UK, the opposite was true, with the Sony blockbuster arriving a week behind the Redmond company's effort. While early pre-order figures seemed to swing in Microsoft's favor - particularly after it sorted out those issues with regional locking, the playability of used games, and so on - the PS4 has, in its first 48 hours on sale, emerged as the fastest-selling console of all time in the UK. Considering that Sony has some ground to make up after losing out in the previous-gen console war, this is hugely indicative that the tables - and Sony's fortunes - could finally be turning.
