14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher and hardware maker Sony says that its PlayStation 3 home console has surpassed the 30 million sales mark on all European and PAL territories on December 17 of this year.
The company sees the new milestone as a sign that the PS3 still has momentum and can continue to generate big sales before the launch of the next generation of home consoles.
Jim Ryan, the president and chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, states, “This is a major milestone for us and clearly shows just how popular the PlayStation brand and products are within Europe and the PAL territories.”
He adds, “We are really pleased with the success of the PS3 system over the last six years, and are committed to continuing our support of the platform with high quality products and titles that are of the caliber that PlayStation fans have come to expect.”
Sony links much of the success of the PlayStation 3 to the two redesigns that the platform has received since it was introduced, both of them set to reduce its power consumption and better dissipate heat.
The Sony console has traditionally performed better in Europe than in the United States, where the Xbox 360 rival from Microsoft has dominated the monthly hardware chart compiled by the NPD Group for more than 20 months.
For now, neither of the two big hardware makers has talked about the new generation of consoles they plan to introduce.
Rumors state that official announcements will be made before E3 2013 and that official launches will take place before Thanksgiving for the Xbox 720 and in summer 2014 for the PlayStation 4 from Sony.
The new devices will deliver more processing power than current platforms and potential features range from better motion tracking integration to digital distribution solutions.