At Tokyo Game Show 2013, SCE President Andrew House announced that Sony plans to sell a whooping 5 million units of Playstation 4 before the end of fiscal year in March 2014.

In a recent interview to Japanese site Weekly ASCII Plus, House finally revealed the exact reason as to why he announce 5 million figure.

“At Gamescom in Europe in August we announced that at that time we had received over one million preorders. We achieved a very significant milestone. Afterwards the positive interest from the users continued to grow, so we set a large goal.

We made such a positive assessment because the hardware is 10 times as powerful as the PS3, but it still has an affordable price. Because of that, it has received a very positive reaction in the American market that is sensitive to pricing.

Another point is that PS4 is a full fledged multi-functional entertainment device out of the box. When the PS3 was originally released it allowed to enjoy the latest games and Blu-ray media, but it was very much limited to games. But this time you can enjoy an outstanding and responsive UI and a variety of entertainment services of the PlayStation Network and the like from the get go. Because of this we think that we can increase the market share greatly from an early stage.”

In the same interview Andrew House also confirmed that before the official launch of Gaikai next year, Sony is planning to have a beta session.

“Probably at the beginning we’ll operate it as a beta test. The actual titles and the methods of purchase are still being planned at this stage.”

Source: Weekly ASCII Plus