Gamers in North America and elsewhere are looking very forward to buying the PlayStation 4 (shown above) next week, one week before the Xbox One goes on sale. As this generation begins to wind down, Sony has announced it’s celebrating a new PS3 sales milestone that, to be frank, is absolutely worth celebrating. Sony has sold 80 million PS3 consoles worldwide as of Nov. 2, 2013.
The PS3, like its PS2 predecessor, ushered in a new disc-based video format by supporting Blu-ray Disc (the PS2 was the de-facto DVD player for millions). But it wasn’t just due to the Blu-ray format that the PS3 has succeeded globally. The console had DLNA client function and stereoscopic 3D support for games and movies, both available via system updates, and of course the PS3 was home to must-have exclusives like the Uncharted series.
The PS3 continues to gain support from third-party developers and publishers, as the cumulative number of software titles released for the PS3 has reached 4,332 worldwide. Among those are The Last of Us, which sold 3.4 million units in less than three weeks when it launched in June, and Journey, which became the first video game in Grammy Award history to be nominated for Best Score Soundtrack.
When the PS3 system was first released in November 2006, SCE also launched PlayStation Network, an online multiplayer gaming and digital entertainment service that now operates in 59 countries and has more than 150 million accounts. Launched alongside the PS3 system and in conjunction with PSN, the PlayStation Store offers a variety of downloadable digital content where PS3 system owners can select from a catalog of more than 222,000 digital content options.
In addition, the PlayStation®Plus (PS Plus) membership service became available in June 2010, providing access to exclusive discounts on PS Store, free games on PS platforms, demos and automatic system updates. The Instant Game Collection was added to PS Plus in North America and in Europe on June 2012, enabling PS Plus members to enjoy popular titles from developers and publishers at no extra cost.
Since its introduction in September 2010, the PlayStation Move motion controller has enabled users to play games intuitively while enhancing the interactive gameplay experience. If I can editorialize here for a moment, though, it’s not as impressive as the Xbox 360’s Kinect sensor.
